1. In the last book
we treated of the indistinguishable nature of God the Father and God
the Son, and demonstrated that the words, I and the Father are
One958958 St. John x. 30., go to prove not a solitary God, but a
unity of the Godhead unbroken by the birth of the Son: for God
can be born only of God, and He that is born God of God must be all
that God is. We reviewed, although not exhaustively, yet enough
to make our meaning clear, the sayings of our Lord and the Apostles,
which teach the inseparable nature and power of the Father and the Son;
and we came to the passage in the teaching of the Apostle, where he
says, Take heed lest there shall be any one that leadeth you astray
through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ; for in Him dwelleth
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily959959Col. ii. 8, 9.. We
pointed out that here the words, in Him dwelleth all the fulness of
the Godhead bodily, prove Him true and perfect God of His
Father’s nature, neither severing Him from, nor identifying Him
with, the Father. On the one hand we are taught that, since the
incorporeal God dwelt in Him bodily, the Son as God begotten of God is
in natural unity with the Father: and on the other hand, if God
dwelt in Christ, this proves the birth of the personal Christ in Whom
He dwelt960960Subsistentis
Christi = subsistentia distincti Christi (see footnote
in the Benedictine Edition). God the Father dwelt in
Christ. But the Dweller must be personally distinct from Christ,
in Whom He dwelt: and as the only distinction between the Father
and Christ is that of Begetter and Begotten, therefore the words
‘God dwelt in Christ’ prove the generation of
Christ.. We have thus,
it seems to me, more than answered the irreverence of those who refer
to a unity or agreement of will such words of the Lord as, He that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father961961 St. John xiv. 9., or, The
Father is in Me and I in the Father962962Ib. x.
38.,
or, I and the Father are One963963Ib.
30., or, All
things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine964964Ib. xvi.
15.. Not daring to deny the words
themselves, these false teachers, in the mask of religion, corrupt the
sense of the words. For instance, it is true that where the unity
of nature is proclaimed the agreement of will cannot be denied; but in
order to set aside that unity which follows from the birth, they
profess merely a relationship of mutual harmony. But the blessed
Apostle, after many indubitable statements of the real truth, cuts
short their rash and profane assertions, by saying, in Christ
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, for by the bodily
indwelling of the incorporeal God in Christ is taught the strict unity
of Their nature. It is, therefore, not a matter of words, but a
real truth that the Son was not alone, but the Father abode in
Him: and not only abode, but also worked and spoke: not
only worked and spoke, but also manifested Himself in Him.
Through the Mystery of the birth the Son’s power is the power of
the Father, His authority the Father’s authority, His nature the
Father’s nature. By His birth the Son possesses the nature
of the Father: as the Father’s image, He reproduces from
the Father all that is in the Father, because He is the reality as well
as the image of the Father, for a perfect birth produces a perfect
image, and the fulness of the Godhead dwelling bodily in Him
indicates the truth of His nature.

2. All this is indeed as it is: He,
Who is by nature God of God, must possess the nature of His origin,
which God possesses, and the indistinguishable unity of a living nature
cannot be divided by the birth of a living nature. Yet
nevertheless the heretics, under cover of the saving confession of the
Gospel faith, are stealing on to the subversion of the truth: for
by forcing their own interpretations on words uttered with other
meanings and intentions, they are robbing the Son of His natural
unity. Thus to deny the Son of God, they quote the authority of
His own words, Why callest thou Me good? None is good, save
one, God965965 St. Mark x. 18 (cf. St. Matt. xix. 17, St. Luke
xviii. 19). The Greek
is οὐδεὶς
ἀγαθὸς, εἰ μὴ
εἷς ὁ θεός,
‘save one, even God’ (R.V.). The application of this
text by the Arians depends upon the omission of the article ὁ.. These words,
they say, proclaim the Oneness of God: anything else, therefore,
which shares the name of God, cannot possess the nature of God, for God
is One. And from His words, This is life eternal, that they
should know Thee the only true God966966 St. John xvii. 3.,
they attempt to establish the theory that Christ is called God by a
mere title, not as being very God. Further, to exclude Him from
the 156proper nature of
the true God, they quote, The Son can do nothing of Himself except
that which He hath seen the Father do967967 St. John v. 19.. They use also the text, The
Father is greater than I.968968Ib. xiv.
28.
Finally, when they repeat the words, Of that day and that hour
knoweth no one, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the
Father only969969 St. Mark xiii. 32; cf. St. Matt. xxiv.
36., as though they
were the absolute renunciation of His claim to divinity, they boast
that they have overthrown the faith of the Church. The birth,
they say, cannot raise to equality the nature which the limitation of
ignorance degrades. The Father’s omniscience and the
Son’s ignorance reveal unlikeness in the Divinity, for God must
be ignorant of nothing, and the ignorant cannot be compared with the
omniscient. All these passages they neither understand
rationally, nor distinguish as to their occasions, nor apprehend in the
light of the Gospel mysteries, nor realize in the strict meaning of the
words and so they impugn the divine nature of Christ with crude and
insensate rashness, quoting single detached utterances to catch the
ears of the unwary, and keeping back either the sequel which explains
or the incidents which prompted them, though the meaning of words must
be sought in the context before or after them.

3. We will offer later an explanation of
these texts in the words of the Gospels and Epistles themselves.
But first we hold it right to remind the members of our common faith,
that the knowledge of the Eternal is presented in the same confession
which gives eternal life970970 Alluding to St.
John xvii. 3, quoted in c. 2.. He does not,
he cannot know his own life, who is ignorant that Christ Jesus was very
God, as He was very man. It is equally perilous, whether we deny
that Christ Jesus was God the Spirit, or that He was flesh of our
body: Every one therefore who shall confess Me before men, him
will I also confess before My Father which is in Heaven. But
whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My
Father which is in heaven971971 St. Matt. x. 32, 33.. So said the
Word made flesh; so taught the man Jesus Christ, the Lord of majesty,
constituted Mediator in His own person for the salvation of the Church,
and being in that very mystery of Mediatorship between men and God,
Himself one Person, both man and God. For He, being of two
natures united for that Mediatorship, is the full reality of each
nature; while abiding in each, He is wanting in neither; He does not
cease to be God because He becomes man, nor fail to be man because He
remains for ever God. This is the true faith for human
blessedness, to preach at once the Godhead and the manhood, to confess
the Word and the flesh, neither forgetting the God, because He is man,
nor ignoring the flesh, because He is the Word.

4. It is contrary to our experience of nature,
that He should be born man and still remain God; but it accords with
the tenor of our expectation, that being born man, He still remained
God, for when the higher nature is born into the lower, it is credible
that the lower should also be born into the higher. And, indeed,
according to the laws and habits of nature, the working of our
expectation even anticipates the divine mystery. For in every
thing that is born, nature has the capacity for increase, but has no
power of decrease. Look at the trees, the crops, the
cattle. Regard man himself, the possessor of reason. He
always expands by growth, he does not contract by decrease; nor does he
ever lose the self into which he has grown. He wastes indeed with
age, or is cut off by death; he undergoes change by lapse of time, or
reaches the end allotted to the constitution of life, yet it is not in
his power to cease to be what he is; I mean that he cannot make a new
self by decrease from his old self, that is, become a child again from
an old man. So the necessity of perpetual increase, which is
imposed on our nature by natural law, leads us on good grounds to
expect its promotion into a higher nature, since its increase is
according to, and its decrease contrary to, nature. It was God
alone Who could become something other than before, and yet not cease
to be what He had ever been; Who could shrink within the limits of
womb, cradle, and infancy, yet not depart from the power of God.
This is a mystery, not for Himself, but for us. The assumption of
our nature was no advancement for God, but His willingness to lower
Himself is our promotion, for He did not resign His divinity but
conferred divinity on man.

5. The Only-begotten God, therefore, when He was
born man of the Virgin, and in the fulness of time was about in His own
person to raise humanity to divinity, always maintained this form of
the Gospel teaching. He taught, namely, to believe Him the Son of
God, and exhorted to preach Him the Son of Man; man saying and doing
all that belongs to God; God saying and doing all that belongs to
man. Yet never did He speak without signifying by the twofold
aspect of these very utterances both His manhood and His
divinity. Though He proclaimed one God the Father, He declared
Himself to be in the 157nature of the
one God, by the truth of His generation. Yet in His office as Son
and His condition as man, He subjected Himself to God the Father, since
everything that is born must refer itself back to its author, and all
flesh must confess itself weak before God. Here, accordingly, the
heretics find opportunity to deceive the simple and ignorant.
These words, uttered in His human character, they falsely refer to the
weakness of His divine nature; and because He was one and the same
Person in all His utterances, they claim that He spoke always of His
entire self.

6. We do not deny that all the sayings which
are preserved of His, refer to His nature. But, if Jesus Christ
be man and God, neither God for the first time, when He became man, nor
then ceasing to be God, nor after He became Man in God less than
perfect man and perfect God, then the mystery of His words must be one
and the same with that of His nature. When according to the time
indicated, we disconnect His divinity from humanity, then let us also
disconnect His language as God from the language of man; when we
confess Him God and man at the same time, let us distinguish at the
same time His words as God and His words as man; when after His manhood
and Godhead, we recognise again the time when His whole manhood is
wholly God, let us refer to that time all that is revealed concerning
it972972 The three periods
referred to in these three sentences are 1) before the
Incarnation: we can assign only to His Godhead the words Christ
uses in reference to this period, because He was not yet man. 2)
The Incarnation: we must distinguish whether He is speaking of
Himself as man or as God. 3) After the Resurrection, when His
manhood remains, but is perfected in the Godhead.. It is one thing, that He was God
before He was man, another, that He was man and God, and another, that
after being man and God, He was perfect man and perfect God. Do
not then confuse the times and natures in the mystery of the
dispensation, for according to the attributes of His different natures,
He must speak of Himself in relation to the mystery of His humanity, in
one way before His birth, in another while He was yet to die, and in
another as eternal.

7. For our sake, therefore, Jesus Christ,
retaining all these attributes, and being born man in our body, spoke
after the fashion of our nature without concealing that divinity
belonged to His own nature. In His birth, His passion, and His
death, He passed through all the circumstances of our nature, but He
bore them all by the power of His own. He was Himself the cause
of His birth, He willed to suffer what He could not suffer, He died
though He lives for ever. Yet God did all this not merely through
man, for He was born of Himself, He suffered of His own free will, and
died of Himself. He did it also as man, for He was really born,
suffered and died. These were the mysteries of the secret
counsels of heaven, determined before the world was made. The
Only-begotten God was to become man of His own will, and man was to
abide eternally in God. God was to suffer of His own will, that
the malice of the devil, working in the weakness of human infirmity,
might not confirm the law of sin in us, since God had assumed our
weakness. God was to die of His own will, that no power, after
that the immortal God had constrained Himself within the law of death,
might raise up its head against Him, or put forth the natural strength
which He had created in it. Thus God was born to take us into
Himself, suffered to justify us, and died to avenge us; for our manhood
abides for ever in Him, the weakness of our infirmity is united with
His strength, and the spiritual powers of iniquity and wickedness are
subdued in the triumph of our flesh, since God died through the
flesh.

8. The Apostle, who knew this mystery, and
had received the knowledge of the faith through the Lord Himself, was
not unmindful, that neither the world, nor mankind, nor philosophy
could contain Him, for he writes, Take heed, lest there shall be any
one that leadeth you astray through philosophy and vain deceit, after
the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after
Jesus Christ, for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily, and in Him ye are made full, Who is the head of all
principalities and powers973973Col. ii. 8–10.. After the
announcement that in Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily, follows immediately the mystery of our assumption, in the
words, in Him ye are made full. As the fulness of the
Godhead is in Him, so we are made full in Him. The Apostle says
not merely ye are made full, but, in Him ye are made
full; for all who are, or shall be, regenerated through the hope of
faith to life eternal, abide even now in the body of Christ; and
afterwards they shall be made full no longer in Him, but in themselves,
at the time of which the Apostle says, Who shall fashion anew the
body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His
glory974974Phil. iii. 21.. Now,
therefore, we are made full in Him, that is, by the assumption of His
flesh, for in Him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Nor has this our hope a light authority in Him. Our fulness in
Him constitutes His 158headship and principality over all power,
as it is written, That in His name every knee should bow, of things
in heaven, and things on earth, and things below, and every tongue
confess that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father975975Phil. ii. 10, 11. The Greek is εἰς δόξαν,
κ.τ.λ. ‘to the glory of God the
Father’ (R.V.). There is also another reading in
Hilary’s text in this place, ‘in gloriam’ instead of
‘in gloria;’ but the latter is demanded by the
context. See c. 42.. Jesus shall be confessed in the
glory of God the Father, born in man, yet now no longer abiding in the
infirmity of our body, but in the glory of God. Every tongue
shall confess this. But though all things in heaven and earth
shall bow the knee to Him, yet herein He is head of all principalities
and powers, that to Him the whole universe shall bow the knee in
submission, in Whom we are made full, Who through the fulness of the
Godhead dwelling in Him bodily, shall be confessed in the glory of God
the Father.

9. But after the announcement of the mystery
of Christ’s nature, and our assumption, that is, the fulness of
Godhead abiding in Christ, and ourselves made full in Him by His birth
as man, the Apostle continues the dispensation of human salvation in
the words, In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not
made with hands, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, but
with the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in
baptism, wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith in the
working of God, who raised Him from the dead976976Col. ii. 11, 12.. We are circumcised not with a
fleshly circumcision but with the circumcision of Christ, that is, we
are born again into a new man; for, being buried with Him in His
baptism, we must die to the old man, because the regeneration of
baptism has the force of resurrection. The circumcision of Christ
does not mean the putting off of foreskins, but to die entirely with
Him, and by that death to live henceforth entirely to Him. For we
rise again in Him through faith in God, Who raised Him from the dead;
wherefore we must believe in God, by Whose Working Christ was raised
from the dead, for our faith rises again in and with Christ.

10. Then is completed the entire mystery of
the assumed manhood, And you being dead through your trespasses and
the uncircumcision of your flesh, you I say, did He quicken together
with Him, having forgiven you all your trespasses, blotting out the
bond written in ordinances, that was against us, which was contrary to
us; and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross, and
having put off from Himself His flesh, He hath made a shew of powers,
triumphing over them in Himself977977Ib.
13–15.. The
worldly man cannot receive the faith of the Apostle, nor can any
language but that of the Apostle explain his meaning. God raised
Christ from the dead; Christ in Whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt
bodily. But He quickened us also together with Him, forgiving us
our sins, blotting out the bond of the law of sin, which through the
ordinances made aforetime was against us, taking it out of the way, and
fixing it to His cross, stripping Himself of His flesh by the law of
death, holding up the powers to shew, and triumphing over them in
Himself. Concerning the powers and how He triumphed over them in
Himself, and held them up to shew, and the bond which he blotted out,
and the life which He gave us, we have already spoken978978 See I. 13.. But who can understand or
express this mystery? The working of God raises Christ from the
dead; the same working of God quickens us together with Christ,
forgives our sins, blots out the bond, and fixes it to the cross; He
puts off from Himself His flesh, holds up the powers to shew, and
triumphs over them in Himself. We have the working of God raising
Christ from the dead, and we have Christ working in Himself the very
things which God works in Him, for it was Christ who died, stripping
from Himself His flesh. Hold fast then to Christ the man, raised
from the dead by God, and hold fast to Christ the God, working out our
salvation when He was yet to die. God works in Christ, but it is
Christ Who strips from Himself His flesh and dies. It was Christ
who died, and Christ Who worked with the power of God before His death,
yet it was the working of God which raised the dead Christ, and it was
none other who raised Christ from the dead but Christ Himself, Who
worked before His death, and put off His flesh to die.

11. Do you understand already the Mysteries of the
Apostle’s Faith? Do you think to know Christ already?
Tell me, then, Who is it Who strips from Himself His flesh, and what is
that flesh stripped off? I see two thoughts expressed by the
Apostle, the flesh stripped off, and Him Who strips it off: and
then I hear of Christ raised from the dead by the working of God.
If it is Christ Who is raised from the dead, and God Who raises Him;
Who, pray, strips from Himself the flesh? Who raises Christ from
the dead, and quickens us with Him? If the dead Christ be not the
same as the flesh stripped off, tell me the name of the flesh stripped
off, and expound me the nature of Him Who strips it off. I find
that Christ the God, Who was raised from the dead, is the 159same as He Who stripped from Himself His flesh,
and that flesh, the same as Christ Who was raised from the dead; then I
see Him holding principalities and powers up to shew, and triumphing in
Himself. Do you understand this triumphing in Himself? Do
you perceive that the flesh stripped off, and He Who strips it off, are
not different from one another? He triumphs in Himself, that is
in that flesh which He stripped from Himself. Do you see that
thus are proclaimed His humanity and His divinity, that death is
attributed to the man, and the quickening of the flesh to the God,
though He Who dies and He Who raises the dead to life are not two, but
one Person? The flesh stripped off is the dead Christ: He
Who raises Christ from the dead is the same Christ Who stripped from
Himself the flesh. See His divine nature in the power to raise
again, and recognise in His death the dispensation of His
manhood. And though either function is performed by its proper
nature, yet remember that He Who died, and raised to life, was one,
Christ Jesus.

12. I remember that the Apostle often refers
to God the Father as raising Christ from the dead; but he is not
inconsistent with himself or at variance with the Gospel faith, for the
Lord Himself says:—Therefore doth the Father love Me, because
I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No one shall take
it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it again. This command have I
received from the Father979979 St. John x. 17, 18.: and again,
when asked to shew a sign concerning Himself, that they might believe
in Him, He says of the Temple of His body, Destroy this Temple, and
in three days I will raise it up980980Ib. ii.
19.. By the
power to take His soul again and to raise the Temple up, He declares
Himself God, and the Resurrection His own work: yet He refers all
to the authority of His Father’s command. This is not
contrary to the meaning of the Apostle, when He proclaims Christ, the
power of God and the wisdom of God9819811 Cor. i. 24.,
thus referring all the magnificence of His work to the glory of the
Father: for whatever Christ does, the power and the wisdom of God
does: and whatever the power and the wisdom of God does, without
doubt God Himself does, Whose power and wisdom Christ is. So
Christ was raised from the dead by the working of God; for He Himself
worked the works of God the Father with a nature indistinguishable from
God’s. And our faith in the Resurrection rests on the God
Who raised Christ from the dead.

13. It is this preaching of the double
aspect of Christ’s Person which the blessed Apostle
emphasises. He points out in Christ His human infirmity, and His
divine power and nature. Thus to the Corinthians he writes,
For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth through
the power of God9829822 Cor. xiii. 4., attributing His
death to human infirmity, but His life to divine power: and again
to the Romans, For the death, that He died unto sin, He died
once: but the life, that He liveth, He liveth unto God.
Even so reckon ye yourselves also to be dead unto sin, but alive unto
God in Christ Jesus983983Rom. vi. 10, 11., ascribing His
death to sin, that is, to our body, but His life to God, Whose nature
it is to live. We ought, therefore, he says, to die to our body,
that we may live to God in Christ Jesus, Who after the assumption of
our body of sin, lives now wholly unto God, uniting the nature He
shared with us with the participation of divine immortality.

14. I have been compelled to dwell briefly on
this, lest we should forget our Lord Jesus Christ is being treated of
as a Person of two natures, since He, Who was abiding in the form of
God, took the form of a servant, in which He was obedient even unto
death. The obedience of death has nothing to do with the form of
God, just as the form of God is not inherent in the form of a
servant. Yet through the Mystery of the Gospel Dispensation the
same Person is in the form of a servant and in the form of God, though
it is not the same thing to take the form of a servant and to be
abiding in the form of God; nor could He Who was abiding in the form of
God, take the form of a servant without emptying Himself, since the
combination of the two forms would be incongruous. Yet it was not
another and a different Person Who emptied Himself and Who took the
form of a servant. To take anything cannot be predicated of some
one who is not, for he only can take who exists. The emptying of
the form does not then imply the abolition of the nature: He
emptied Himself, but did not lose His self: He took a new form,
but remained what He was. Again, whether emptying or taking, He
was the same Person: there is, therefore, a mystery, in that He
emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant, but He does not come
to an end, so as to cease to exist in emptying Himself, and to be
non-existent when He took. The emptying availed to bring about
the taking of the servant’s form, but not to prevent Christ, Who
was in the form of God, from continuing to be Christ, for it was in
very deed Christ Who took the form of a servant. When He emptied
Himself to become Christ the man, while continuing to be Christ the
Spirit, the 160changing of His bodily
fashion, and the assumption of another nature in His body, did not put
an end to the nature of His eternal divinity, for He was one and the
same Christ when He changed His fashion, and when He assumed our
nature.

15. We have now expounded the Dispensation
of the Mysteries, through which the heretics deceive certain of the
unlearned into ascribing to infirmity in the divinity, what Christ said
and did through His assumed human nature, and attributing to the form
of God what is appropriate only to the form of the servant. Let
us pass on, then, to answer their statements in detail. We can
always safely distinguish the two kinds of utterances, since the only
true faith lies in the confession of Jesus Christ as Word and flesh,
that is, God and Man. The heretics consider it necessary to deny
that our Lord Jesus Christ by virtue of His nature was divine, because
He said, Why callest thou Me good? None is good save one,
God984984 St. Mark x. 18; cf. St. Matt. xix. 17; St. Luke
xviii. 19, and note on c. 2
of this book.. Now a satisfactory answer must
stand in direct relation to the matter of enquiry, for only in that
case will it furnish a reply to the question put. At the outset,
then, I would ask these misinterpreters, “Do you think that the
Lord resented being called good?” Would He rather have been
called bad, as seems to be signified by the words, Why callest thou
Me good? I do not think any one is so unreasonable as to
ascribe to Him a confession of wickedness, when it was He Who said,
Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will
refresh you. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me: for I
am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your
souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light985985 St. Matt. xi. 28, 30.. He says He is meek and
lowly: can we believe that He was angry because He was called
good? The two propositions are inconsistent. He Who
witnesses to His own goodness would not repudiate the name of
Good. Plainly, then, He was not angry because He was called
good: and if we cannot believe that He resented being called
good, we must ask what was said of Him which He did resent.

16. Let us see, then, how the questioner
styled Him, beside calling Him good. He said, Good Master,
what good thing shall I do986986Ib.
xix. 16.? adding to the
title of “good” that of master. If Christ then did
not chide because He was called good, it must have been because He was
called “good Master.” Further the manner of His
reproof shews that it was the disbelief of the questioner, rather than
the name of master, or of good, which He resented. A youth, who
provides himself upon the observance of the law, but did not know the
end of the law987987Rom. x. 4., which is
Christ, who thought himself justified by works, without perceiving that
Christ came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel988988 St. Matt.
xv. 24; cf. x. 6., and to those who believe that the law
cannot save through the faith of justification989989 Cf. Rom. viii. 3, “What the law could not
do;” and Gal. iii.
11 ff., “No man is
justified by the law in the sight of God.…The law is not of
faith.”,
questioned the Lord of the law, the Only-begotten God, as though He
were a teacher of the common precepts and the writings of the
law. But the Lord, abhorring this declaration of irreverent
unbelief, which addresses Him as a teacher of the law, answered, Why
callest thou Me good? and to shew how we may know, and call Him
good, He added, None is good, save one, God, not repudiating the
name of good, if it be given to Him as God.

17. Then, as a proof that He resents the
name “good master,” on the ground of the unbelief, which
addresses Him as a man, He replies to the vain-glorious youth, and his
boast that he had fulfilled the law, One thing thou lackest; go,
sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. There is no
shrinking from the title of “good” in the promise of
heavenly treasures, no reluctance to be regarded as
“master” in the offer to lead the way to perfect
blessedness. But there is reproof of the unbelief which draws an
earthly opinion of Him from the teaching, that goodness belongs to God
alone. To signify that He is both good and God, He exercises the
functions of goodness, opening the heavenly treasures, and offering
Himself as guide to them. All the homage offered to Him as man He
repudiates, but he does not disown that which He paid to God; for at
the moment when He confesses that the one God is good, His words and
actions are those of the power and the goodness and the nature of the
one God.

18. That He did not shrink from the title of
good, or decline the office of master, but resented the unbelief which
perceived no more in Him than body and flesh, may be proved from the
difference of His language, when the apostles confessed Him their
Master, Ye call Me Master, and Lord, and ye say well, for so I
am990990 St. John xiii. 13.; and on another occasion, Be ye not
called masters, for Christ is your Master991991 St. Matt. xxiii. 10.. From the faithful, to whom He is
master, He accepts the title with words of praise, but here
161He rejects the name “good
master,” when He is not acknowledged to be the Lord and the
Christ, and pronounces the one God alone good, but without
distinguishing Himself from God, for He calls Himself Lord, and Christ,
and guide to the heavenly treasures.

19. The Lord always maintained this
definition of the faith of the Church, which consists in teaching that
there is one God the Father, but without separating Himself from the
mystery of the one God, for He declared Himself, by the nature which is
His by birth, neither a second God, nor the sole God. Since the
nature of the One God is in Him, He cannot be God of a different kind
from Him; His birth requires that, being Son, it should be with a
perfect Sonship992992 i.e. including
personal distinction from the Father, cf. c. 1, and note.. So He can
neither be separated from God nor merged in God. Hence He speaks
in words deliberately chosen, so that whatever He claims for the
Father, He signifies in modest language to be appropriate to Himself
also. Take as an instance the command, Believe in God, and
believe also in Me993993 St. John xiv. 1.. He is
identified with God in honour; how, pray, can He be separated from His
nature? He says, Believe in Me also, just as He said
Believe in God. Do not the words in Me signify His
nature? Separate the two natures, but you must separate also the
two beliefs. If it be life, that we should believe in God without
Christ, strip Christ of the name and qualities of God. But if
perfect life is given to those who believe in God, only when they
believe in Christ also, let the careful reader ponder the meaning of
the saying, Believe in God, and believe in Me also, for these
words, uniting faith in Him with faith in God, unite His nature to
God’s. He enjoins first of all the duty of belief in God,
but adds to it the command that we should believe in Himself also;
which implies that He is God, since they who believe in God must also
believe in Him. Yet He excludes the suggestion of a unity
contrary to religion994994 i.e. such as
Sabellius had taught by extending the unity of nature into a unity of
person. There is a unity of nature in the Godhead, but a union of
Persons., for the
exhortation Believe in God, believe in Me also, forbids us to
think of Him as alone in solitude.

20. In many, nay almost all His discourses,
He offers the explanation of this mystery, never separating Himself
from the divine unity, when He confesses God the Father, and never
characterising God as single and solitary, when He places Himself in
unity with Him. But nowhere does He more plainly teach the
mystery of His unity and His birth than when He says, But the
witness which I have is greater than that of John, for the works which
the Father hath given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear
witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me, and the Father which sent
Me, He hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice
at any time nor seen His form. And ye have not His word abiding
in you, for Whom He sent, Him ye believe not.995995 St. John v. 36–38. How can the Father be truly
said to have borne witness of the Son, when neither He Himself was
seen, nor His voice heard? Yet I remember that a voice was heard
from Heaven, which said, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I have been
well pleased; hear ye Him996996 St. Matt. xvii. 5, the occasion of the
Transfiguration. But the context shews that Hilary is referring
to the voice heard at the baptism, where all the three Evangelists
(St. Matt. iii. 17, St. Mark i. 11, St. Luke iii.
22), according to the
commonly received text agree in omitting the words, “Hear ye
Him.”. How can it
be said that they did not hear the voice of God, when the voice which
they heard itself asserted that it was the Father’s voice?
But perhaps the dwellers in Jerusalem had not heard what John had heard
in the solitude of the desert. We must ask, then, “How did
the Father bear witness in Jerusalem?” It is no longer the
witness given to John, who heard the voice from heaven, but a witness
greater than that of John. What that witness is He goes on to
say, The works which the Father hath given me to accomplish, the
very works which I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent
Me. We must admit the authority of the testimony, for no one,
except the Son sent of the Father, could do such works. His works
are therefore His testimony. But what follows? And the
Father, which sent Me, He hath borne witness of Me. Ye have
neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form, and ye have not
His word abiding in you. Are they blameless, in that they did
not know the testimony of the Father, Who was never heard or seen
amongst them, and Whose word was not abiding in them? No, for
they cannot plead that His testimony was hidden from them; as Christ
says, the testimony of His works is the testimony of the Father
concerning Him. His works testify of Him that He was sent of the
Father; but the testimony of these works is the Father’s
testimony; since, therefore, the working of the Son is the
Father’s testimony, it follows of necessity that the same nature
was operative in Christ, by which the Father testifies of Him. So
Christ, Who works the works, and the Father Who testifies through them,
are revealed as possessing one inseparable nature through the birth,
for the operation of Christ 162is signified to be itself the testimony of God
concerning Him.

21. They are not, therefore, acquitted of
blame for not recognising the testimony; for the works of Christ are
the Father’s testimony concerning Him. Nor can they plead
ignorance of the testimony on the ground that they had not heard the
voice of the Testifier, nor seen His form, nor had His word abiding in
them. For immediately after the words, Ye have neither heard
His voice at any time, nor seen His form, and ye have not His word
abiding in you, He points out why the voice was not heard, nor the
form seen, and the word did not abide in them, though the Father had
testified concerning Him: For Whom He sent, Him ye believe
not; that is, if they had believed Him, they would have heard the
voice of God, and seen the form of God, and His word would have been in
them, since through the unity of Their nature the Father is heard and
manifested and possessed in the Son. Is He not also the
expression of the Father, since He was sent from Him? Does He
distinguish Himself by any difference of nature from the Father, when
He says that the Father, testifying of Him, was neither heard, nor
seen, nor understood, because they did not believe in Him, Whom the
Father sent? The Only-begotten God does not, therefore, separate
Himself from God when He confesses God the Father; but, proclaiming by
the word “Father” His relationship to God, He includes
Himself in the honour due to God.

22. For, in this very same discourse in
which He pronounces that His works testify of Him that He was sent of
the Father, and asserts that the Father testifies of Him, that He was
sent from Him, He says, The honour of Him, Who alone is God, ye seek
not997997 St. John v. 44. The usual text of the Greek is
τὴν δόξαν
τὴν παρὰ τοῦ
μόνου θεοῦ,
“the glory that cometh from the only God” (R.V.).. This is not, however, a bare
statement, without any previous preparation for the belief in His unity
with the Father. Hear what precedes it, Ye will not come to Me
that ye may have life. I receive not glory from men. But I
know you, that ye have not the love of God in yourselves. I am
come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not: if another
shall come in His name998998 At the close of
this chapter, Hilary speaks as if these words were, “if another
shall come in His (i.e. the Father’s) name,” though the
Latin “si alius venerit in nomine suo,” is ambiguous and
the Greek, “ἔαν ἄλλος
ἔλθῃ ἐν τῷ
ὀνόματι τῷ
ἰδί& 251·,” quite excludes this
translation.,him ye will
receive. How can ye believe, which receive glory from men, and
the glory of Him, Who alone is God, ye seek not.999999 St. John v. 40–44. He disdains the glory of men,
for glory should rather be sought of God. It is the mark of
unbelievers to receive glory of one another: for what glory can
man give to man? He says He knows that the love of God is not in
them, and pronounces, as the cause, that they do not receive Him coming
in His Father’s name. “Coming in His Father’s
name:” what does that mean but “coming in the name of
God?” Is it not because they rejected Him Who came in the
name of God, that the love of God is not in them? Is it not
implied that He has the nature of God, when He says, Ye will not
come to Me that ye may have life. Hear what He said of
Himself in the same discourse, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the
hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God; and they that hear shall live10001000 St. John v. 25..
He comes in the name of the Father: that is, He is not
Himself the Father, yet is in the same divine nature as the
Father: for as Son and God it is natural for Him to come in the
name of the Father. Then, another coming in the same name they
will receive: but he is one from whom men will expect glory, and
to whom they will give glory in return, though he will feign to have
come in the name of the Father. By this, doubtless, is signified
the Antichrist, glorying in his false use of the Father’s
name. Him they will glorify, and will be glorified of him:
but the glory of Him, Who alone is God, they will not seek.

23. They have not the love of God in them,
He says, because they rejected Him coming in the name of the Father,
but accepted another, who came in the same name, and received glory of
one another, but neglected the glory of Him, Who is the only true
God. Is it possible to think that He separates Himself from the
glory of the only God, when He gives as the reason why they seek not
the glory of the only God, that they receive Antichrist, and Himself
they will not receive? To reject Him is to neglect the glory of
the only God; is not, then, His glory the glory of the only God, if to
receive Him steadfastly was to seek the glory of the only God?
This very discourse is our witness: for at its beginning we read,
That all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.
He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which sent
Him10011001Ib. v.
23.. It is only
things of the same nature that are equal in honour; equality of honour
denotes that there is no separation between the honoured. But
with the revelation of the birth is combined, the demand for equality
of honour. Since the Son is to be honoured as 163the Father10021002 Following the
punctuation of the older Editions, and placing the full stop after,
instead of before, the sentence “cum Filius ita honorandus ut
Pater sit.”,
and since they seek not the honour of Him, Who is the only God, He is
not excluded from the honour of the only God, for His honour is one and
the same as that of God: just as He that honoureth not the
Son, honoureth not the Father also, so he who seeks not the honour
of the only God, seeks not the honour of Christ also. Accordingly
the honour of Christ is inseparable from the honour of God. By
His words, when the news of Lazarus’ sickness was brought to Him,
He illustrates the complete identification of Father and Son in
honour: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of
God, that the Son of Man may be glorified through him.10031003 St. John xi. 4, “through him” = through
Lazarus. The Greek is δι᾽
αὐτῆς, “thereby”
(R.V.). Lazarus dies for the glory of
God, that the Son of God may be glorified through him. Is there
any doubt that the glory of the Son of God is the glory of God, when
the death of Lazarus, which is glorious to God, glorifies the Son of
God? Thus Christ is declared to be one in nature with God the
Father through His birth, since the sickness of Lazarus is for the
glory of God, and at the same time the Mystery of the faith is not
violated, for the Son of God is to be glorified through Lazarus.
The Son of God is to be regarded as God, yet He is none the less to be
confessed also Son of God: for by glorifying God through Lazarus,
the Son of God is glorified.

24. By the mystery of the divine nature we
are forbidden to separate the birth of the living Son from His living
Father. The Son of God suffers no such change of kind, that the
truth of His Father’s nature does not abide in Him. For
even where, by the confession of one God only, He seems to disclaim for
Himself the nature of God by the term “only,” nevertheless,
without destroying the belief in one God, He places Himself in the
unity of the Father’s nature. Thus, when the Scribe asked
Him, which is the chief commandment of the law, He answered, Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
spirit, and with all thy strength. This is the first
commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater
than these10041004 St. Mark xii. 29–31; cf. Matt. xxii.
36–40.. They think
that He severs Himself from the nature and worship of the One God when
He pronounces as the chief commandment, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord, and does not even make Himself the object of
worship in the second commandment, since the law bids us to love our
neighbour, as it bids us to believe in one God. Nor must we pass
over the answer of the Scribe, Of a truth thou hast well said, that
God is one, and there is none other but He: and to love Him with
all the heart, and all the strength and all the soul, and to love his
neighbour as himself, this is greater than all whole burnt offerings
and sacrifices10051005 St. Mark xii. 52, 33.. The answer of
the Scribe seems to accord with the words of the Lord, for He too
proclaims the innermost and inmost love of one God, and professes the
love of one’s neighbour as real as the love of self, and places
love of God and love of one’s neighbour above all the burnt
offerings of sacrifices. But let us see what follows.

25. And when Jesus saw that he answered
discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of
God10061006Ib.
34.. What is the
meaning of such moderate praise? Believe in one God, and love Him
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy heart,
and love thy neighbour as thyself; if this be the faith which makes man
perfect for the Kingdom of God, why is not the Scribe already within,
instead of not far from the Kingdom of Heaven? It is in
another strain that He grants the Kingdom of Heaven to those who clothe
the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and visit the
sick and the prisoner, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world10071007Matt. xxv. 34.; or rewards the poor in spirit, Blessed
are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of
Heaven10081008Ib. v. 3; cf. Luke vi. 20.. Their gain
is perfect, their possession complete, their inheritance of the kingdom
prepared for them is secured. But was this young man’s
confession short of theirs? His ideal of duty raises love of
neighbour to the level of love of self; what more did he want to attain
to the perfection of good conduct? To be occasionally charitable,
and ready to help, is not perfect love; but perfect love has fulfilled
the whole duty of charity, when a man leaves no debt to his neighbour
unpaid, but gives him as much as he gives himself. But the Scribe
was debarred from perfection, because he did not know the mystery which
had been accomplished. He received, indeed, the praise of the
Lord for his profession of faith, he heard the reply that he was not
far from the kingdom, but he was not put in actual possession of the
blessed hope. His course, though ignorant, was favourable; he put
the love of God before all things, and charity towards his neighbour on
a level with love of self. And 164when he ranked the love of God even higher than
charity towards his neighbour, he broke through the law of burnt
offerings and sacrifices; and that was not far from the mystery of the
Gospel.

26. We may perceive also, from the words of
our Lord Himself, why He said, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of
Heaven, rather than, Thou shalt be in the Kingdom of
Heaven. Then follows: And no man after that durst
ask Him any question. And Jesus answered and said, as He taught
in the Temple, How say the Scribes that the Christ is the Son of
David? David himself saith in the Holy Spirit, The Lord said unto
my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies the
footstool of Thy feet (Ps. cx. 1). David himself calleth
Him Lord, and whence is He his Son10091009 St. Mark xii. 34–37.? The Scribe is not far from the
Kingdom of God when he confesses one God, Who is to be loved above all
things. But his own statement of the law is a reproach to him
that the mystery of the law has escaped him, that he does not know
Christ the Lord, the Son of God, by the nature of His birth to be
included in the confession of the one God. The confession of one
God according to the law seemed to leave no room for the Son of God in
the mystery of the one Lord; so He asks the Scribe, how he can call
Christ the Son of David, when David calls Him his Lord, since it is
against the order of nature that the son of so great a Patriarch should
be also his Lord. He would bid the Scribe, who regards Him only
in respect of His flesh, and His birth from Mary, the daughter of
David, to remember that, in respect of His Spirit, He is David’s
Lord rather than his son; that the words, Hear, O Israel, the Lord
our God is one Lord, do not sever Christ from the mystery of the
One Lord, since so great a Patriarch and Prophet calls Him his Lord, as
the Son begotten of the Lord before the morning star. He does not
pass over the law, or forget that none other is to be confessed Lord,
but without violating the faith of the law, He teaches that He is Lord,
in that He had His being by the mystery of a natural birth from the
substance of the incorporeal God. He is one, born of one, and the
nature of the one Lord has made Him by nature Lord.

27. What room is any longer left for doubt?
The Lord Himself proclaiming that the chief commandment of the law is
to confess and love the one Lord, proves Himself to be Lord not by
words of His own, but by the Prophet’s testimony, always
signifying, however, that He is Lord, because He is the Son of
God. By virtue of His birth He abides in the mystery of the one
God, for the birth transmitting with it, as it did, the nature of God
is not the issuing forth of another God with a different nature; and,
because the generation is real, neither is the Father degraded from
being Lord, nor is the Son born less than Lord. The Father
retains His authority, the Son obtains His nature. God the Father
is one Lord, but the Only-begotten God the Lord is not separated from
the One, since He derives His nature as Lord from the one Lord.
Thus by the law Christ teaches that there is one Lord; by the witness
of the prophets He proves Himself Lord also.

28. May the faith of the Gospel ever profit
thus by the rash contentions of the ungodly to defend itself with the
weapons of their attack, and conquering with the arms prepared for its
destruction, prove that the words of the one Spirit are the doctrine of
the one faith! For Christ is none other than He is preached,
namely the true God, and abiding in the glory of the one true
God. Just as He proclaims Himself Lord out of the law, even when
He seems to deny the fact, so in the Gospels He proves Himself the true
God, even when He appears to confess the opposite. To escape the
acknowledgment that He is the true God, the heretics plead that He
said, And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only
true God. and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ10101010 St. John xvii. 3.. When He says, Thee, the only true
God, they think He excludes Himself from the reality of God by the
restriction of solitariness; for the only true God cannot be understood
except as a solitary God. It is true the Apostolic faith does not
suffer us to believe in two true Gods, for nothing which is foreign to
the nature of the one God can be put on equality with the truth of that
nature; and there is more than one God in the reality of the one God,
if there exists outside the nature of the only true God a true God of
another kind, not possessing by virtue of His birth the same nature
with Him.

29. But by these very words He proclaims Himself
plainly to be true God in the nature of the only true God. To
understand this, let our answer proceed from statements which He made
previously, though the connection is unbroken right down to these
words. We can then establish the faith step by step, and let the
confidence of our freedom rest at last on the summit of our argument,
the true Godhead of Christ. There comes first the mystery
165of His words, He that hath
seen Me, hath seen the Father; and, Do ye not believe Me that I
am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I say unto
you, I speak not from Myself; but the Father abiding in Me, Himself
doeth His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the
Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works’
sake10111011 St. John xiv. 9–11.. At the close
of this discourse, teeming with deep mysteries, follows the reply of
the disciples, Now know we that Thou knowest all things, and needest
not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that Thou
camest forth from God10121012Ib. xvi.
30.. They
perceived in Him the nature of God by the divine powers which He
exercised; for to know all things, and to read the thoughts of the
heart belongs to the Son, not to the mere messenger of God. They
confessed, therefore, that He was come from God, because the power of
the divine nature was in Him.

30. The Lord praised their understanding,
and answered not that He was sent from, but that He was come out from,
God, signifying by the words “come out from” the great fact
of His birth from the incorporeal God. He had already proclaimed
the birth in the same language, when He said, Ye love Me, and
believe that I came out from the Father, and came from the Father into
this world10131013Ib.
27, 28.. He had come
from the Father into this world, because He had come out from
God. To shew that He signifies His birth by the coming out, He
adds that He has come from the Father; and since He had come out from
God, because He had come from the Father, that “coming
out,” followed, as it is, by the confession of the Father’s
name, is simply and solely the birth. To the Apostles, then, as
understanding this mystery of His coming out, He continues, Ye
believe now, Behold the hour cometh, yea is come, that ye shall be
scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: yet I
am not alone, because the Father is with Me10141014Ib.
31, 32.. He would shew that the “coming
out” is not a separation from God the Father, but a birth, which
by His being born continues in Him the nature of God the Father, and
therefore He adds that He is not alone, but the Father is with Him; in
power, that is, and unity of nature, for the Father was abiding in Him,
speaking in His words, and working in His works. Lastly to shew
the reason of this whole discourse, He adds, These things I have
spoken to you, that in Me ye may have peace. In this world ye
shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, for I have overcome
the world10151015 St. John xvi. 33.. He has spoken
these things unto them, that in Him they may abide in peace, not torn
asunder by the passion of dissension over debates about the
faith. He was left alone, but was not alone, for He had come out
from God, and there abode still in Him the God, from Whom He had come
out. Therefore he bade them, when they were harassed in the
world, to wait for His promises, for since He had come out from God,
and God was still in Him, He had conquered the world.

31. Then, finally, to express in words the
whole Mystery, He raised His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the
hour is come: glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify
Thee. Even as Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, that,
whatsoever Thou hast given Him, to them He should give eternal
life10161016Ib.
xvii. 1, 2.. Do you call
Him weak because He asks to be glorified? So be it, if He does
not ask to be glorified in order that He may Himself glorify Him by
Whom He is glorified. Of the receiving and giving of glory we
have spoken in another book10171017 See iii. 12., and it would be
superfluous to go over the question again. But of this at least
we are certain, that He prays for glory in order that the Father may be
glorified by granting it. But perhaps He is weak in that He
receives power over all flesh. And indeed the receiving of
power might be a sign of weakness if He were not able to give to those
whom He receives life eternal. Yet the very fact of receiving is
used to prove inferiority of nature. It might, if Christ were not
true God by birth as truly as is the Unbegotten. But if the
receiving of power signifies neither more nor less than the Birth, by
which He received all that He has, that gift does not degrade the
Begotten, because it makes Him perfectly and entirely what God
is. God Unbegotten brought God Only-begotten to a perfect birth
of divine blessedness: it is, then, the mystery of the Father to
be the Author of the Birth, but it is no degradation to the Son to be
made the perfect image of His Author by a real birth. The giving
of power over all flesh, and this, in order that to all flesh might be
given eternal life, postulates the Fatherhood of the Giver and the
Divinity of the Receiver: for by giving is signified that the One
is the Father, and in receiving the power to give eternal life, the
Other remains God the Son. All power is therefore natural and
congenital to the Son of God; and though it is given, that does not
separate Him from His Author, for that which is given is the property
of His Author, 166power
to bestow eternal life, to change the corruptible into the
incorruptible. The Father gave all, the Son received all; as is
plain from His words, All things, whatsoever the Father hath, are
Mine10181018 St. John xvi. 15.. He is not
speaking here of species of created things, and processes of material
change10191019 i.e. He does not
mean whatsoever the Father hath the created world; nor is the
giving and receiving to be understood in a material sense, cf. c.
72., but He unfolds to
us the glory of the blessed and perfect Divinity, and teaches us that
God is here manifested as the sum of His attributes, His power, His
eternity, His providence, His authority; not that we should think that
He possesses these as something extraneous to Himself, but that by
these His qualities He Himself has been expressed in terms partly
comprehensible by our sense. The Only-begotten, therefore, taught
that He had all that the Father has, and that the Holy Spirit should
receive of Him: as He says, All things, whatsoever the Father
hath, are Mine; therefore I said, He shall take of Mine10201020 St. John xvi. 15. The “He” is the Holy
Ghost; see the context.. All that the Father hath are His,
delivered and received: but these gifts do not degrade His
divinity, since they give Him the same attributes as the
Father.

32. These are the steps by which He advances
the knowledge of Himself. He teaches that He is come out from the
Father, proclaims that the Father is with Him, and testifies that He
has conquered the world. He is to be glorified of the Father, and
will glorify Him: He will use the power He has received, to give
to all flesh eternal life. Then hear the crowning point, which
concludes the whole series, And this is life eternal, that they
should know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even
Jesus Christ10211021Ib. xvii.
3.. Learn,
heretic, to confess, if you cannot believe, the faith which gives
eternal life. Separate, if you can, Christ from God, the Son from
the Father, God over all from the true God, the One from the
Only: if, as you say, eternal life is to believe in one only true
God without Jesus Christ. But if there is no eternal life in a
confession of the only true God, which separates Christ from Him, how,
pray, can Christ be separated from the true God for our faith, when He
is not separable for our salvation?

33. I know that laboured solutions of
difficult questions do not find favour with the reader, but it will
perhaps be to the advantage of the faith if I permit myself to postpone
for a time the exposition of the full truth, and wrestle against the
heretics with these words of the Gospel. You hear the statement
of the Lord, This is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the
only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus
Christ. What is it, pray, which suggests to you that Christ
is not the true God? No further indication is given to shew you
what you should think of Christ. There is nothing but Jesus
Christ: not Son of Man, as He generally called
Himself: not Son of God, as He often declared
Himself: not the living bread which cometh down from
Heaven10221022 St. John vi. 51., as He repeated to
the scandal of many. He says, Thee, the only true God, and Him
Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ, omitting all His usual
names and titles, natural and assumed. Hence, if the confession
of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, gives us eternal life,
without doubt the name Jesus Christ has here the full sense of that of
God.

34. But perhaps by saying, Thee the
only, Christ severs Himself from communion and unity with
God. Yes, but after the words, Thee the only true God,
does He not immediately continue, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even
Jesus Christ? I appeal to the sense of the reader: what
must we believe Christ to be, when we are commanded to believe in Him
also, as well as the Father the only true God? Or, perhaps, if
the Father is the only true God, there is no room for Christ to be
God. It might be so, if, because there is one God the Father,
Christ were not the one Lord102310231 Cor. viii. 6: see above, c. 32.. The fact
that God the Father is one, leaves Christ none the less the one
Lord: and similarly the Father’s one true Godhead makes
Christ none the less true God: for we can only obtain eternal
life if we believe in Christ, as well as in the only true
God

35. Come, heretic, what will your fatuous doctrine
instruct us to believe of Christ; Christ, Who dispenses eternal life,
Who is glorified of, and glorifies, the Father, Who overcame the world,
Who, deserted, is not alone, but has the Father with Him, Who came out
from God, and came from the Father? He is born with such divine
powers; what of the nature and reality of God will you allow Him?
It is in vain that we believe in the only true God the Father, unless
we believe also in Him, Whom He sent, even Jesus Christ. Why do
you hesitate? Tell us, what is Christ to be confessed? You
deny what has been written: what is left, but to believe what has
not been written? O unhappy wilfulness! O falsehood
striving against the truth! Christ is united in belief and
con167fession with the only true God
the Father: what faith is it, pray, to deny Him to be true God,
and to call Him a creature, when it is no faith to believe in the only
true God without Christ? But you are narrow, heretic, and unable
to receive the Holy Spirit. The sense of the heavenly words
escapes you; stung with the asp’s poison of error, you forget
that Christ is to be confessed true God in the faith of the only true
God, if we would obtain eternal life.

36. But the faith of the Church, while confessing
the only true God the Father, confesses Christ also. It does not
confess Christ true God without the Father the only true God; nor the
Father the only true God without Christ. It confesses Christ true
God, because it confesses the Father the only true God. Thus the
fact that God the Father is the only true God constitutes Christ also
true God. The Only-begotten God suffered no change of nature by
His natural birth: and He Who, according to the nature of His
divine origin was born God from the living God, is, by the truth of
that nature, inalienable from the only true God. Thus there
follows from the true divine nature its necessary result, that the
outcome of true divinity must be a true birth, and that the one God
could not produce from Himself a God of a second kind. The
mystery of God consists neither in simplicity, nor in
multiplicity: for neither is there another God, Who springs from
God with qualities of His own nature, nor does God remain as a single
Person, for the true birth of the Son teaches us to confess Him as
Father. The begotten God did not, therefore, lose the qualities
of His nature: He possesses the natural power of Him, Whose
nature He retains in Himself by a natural birth. The divinity in
Him is not changed, or degenerate, for if His birth had brought with it
any defect, it would more justly cast upon the Nature, through which He
came into being, the reflection of having failed to implant in its
offspring the properties of itself. The change would not degrade
the Son, Who had passed into a new substance by birth, but the Father,
Who had been unable to maintain the constancy of His nature in the
birth of the Son, and had brought forth something external and foreign
to Himself.

37. But, as we have often said, the inadequacy of
human ideas has no corresponding inadequacy in the unity of God the
Father and God the Son: as though there were extension, or
series, or flux, like a spring pouring forth its stream from the
source, or a tree supporting its branch on the stem, or fire giving out
its heat into space. In these cases we have expansion without any
separation: the parts are bound together and do not exist of
themselves, but the heat is in the fire, the branch in the tree, the
stream in the spring. So the thing itself alone has an
independent existence; the one does not pass into the other, for the
tree and the branch are one and the same, as also the fire and the
heat, the spring and the stream. But the Only-begotten God is
God, subsisting by virtue of a perfect and ineffable birth, true Scion
of the Unbegotten God, incorporeal offspring of an incorporeal nature,
living and true God of living and true God, God of a nature inseparable
from God. The fact of birth does not make Him God with a
different nature, nor did the generation, which produced His substance,
change its nature in kind.

38. Put in the dispensation of the flesh which He
assumed, and through the obedience whereby He emptied Himself of the
form of God, Christ, born man, took to Himself a new nature, not by
loss of virtue or nature but by change of fashion. He emptied
Himself of the form of God and took the form of a servant, when He was
born. But the Father’s nature, with which He was in natural
unity, was not affected by this assumption of flesh; while Christ,
though abiding in the virtue of His nature, yet in respect of the
humanity assumed in this temporal change, lost together with the form
of God the unity with the divine nature also. But the Incarnation
is summed up in this, that the whole Son, that is, His manhood as well
as His divinity, was permitted by the Father’s gracious favour to
continue in the unity of the Father’s nature, and retained not
only the powers of the divine nature, but also that nature’s
self. For the object to be gained was that man might become
God. But the assumed manhood could not in any wise abide in the
unity of God, unless, through unity with God, it attained to unity with
the nature of God. Then, since God the Word was in the nature of
God, the Word made flesh would in its turn also be in the nature of
God. Thus, if the flesh were united to the glory of the Word, the
man Jesus Christ could abide in the glory of God the Father, and the
Word made flesh could be restored to the unity of the Father’s
nature, even as regards His manhood, since the assumed flesh had
obtained the glory of the Word. Therefore the Father must
reinstate the Word in His unity, that the offspring of His nature might
again return to be glorified in Himself: for the unity had been
infringed by the new dispensation, and could only be restored perfect
as before if the Father glorified with Himself the flesh assumed by the
Son.

16839. For
this reason, having already so well prepared their minds for the
understanding of this belief, the Lord follows up the words, And
this is eternal life, that they should know Thee, the only true God,
and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ, with a reference
to the obedience displayed in His incarnation, I have glorified Thee
on the earth, I have accomplished the work which Thou gavest Me to
do10241024 St. John xvii. 3, 4.. And then,
that we might know the reward of His obedience, and the secret purpose
of the whole divine plan, He continued, And now, O Father, glorify
Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee
before the world was10251025Ib.
5.. Does any one
deny that Christ remained in the nature of God or believe Him separable
and distinct from the only true God? Let him tell us what is the
meaning of this prayer. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me
with Thine own self. For what purpose should the Father
glorify Him with His own self? What is the signification of these
words? What follows from their signification? The Father
neither stood in need of glory, nor had He emptied Himself of the form
of His glory. How should He glorify the Son with His own self,
and with that glory which He had with Him before the world was
made? And what is the sense of which He had with
Him? Christ does not say, “The glory which I had before
the world was made, when I was with Thee,” but, The glory
which I had with Thee. When I was with Thee would signify,
“when I dwelt by Thy side:” but which I had with
Thee teaches the Mystery of His nature. Further, Glorify
Me with Thyself is not the same as “Glorify Me.”
He does not ask merely that He may be glorified, that He may have some
special glory of His own, but prays that He may be glorified of the
Father with Himself. The Father was to glorify Him with Himself,
that He might abide in unity with Him as before, since the unity with
the Father’s glory had left Him through the obedience of the
Incarnation. And this means that the glorifying should reinstate
Him in that nature, with which He was united by the Mystery of His
divine birth; that He might be glorified of the Father with Himself;
that He should resume all that He had had with the Father before; that
the assumption of the servant’s form should not estrange from Him
the nature of the form of God, but that God should glorify in Himself
the form of the servant, that it might become for ever the form of God,
since He, Who had before abode in the form of God, was now in the form
of a servant. And since the form of a servant was to be glorified
in the form of God, it was to be glorified in Him in Whose form the
fashion of the servant’s form was to be honoured.

40. But these words of the Lord are not new,
or attested now for the first time in the teaching of the Gospels, for
He testified to this very mystery of God the Father glorifying the Son
with Himself by the noble joy at the fulfilment of His hope, with which
He rejoiced at the very moment when Judas went forth to betray
Him. Filled with joy that His purpose was now to be fully
accomplished, He said, Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is
glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, He hath glorified
Him in Himself, and straightway hath He glorified Him10261026 St. John xiii. 31, 32.. How can we whose souls are burdened
with bodies of clay, whose minds are polluted and stained with foul
consciousness of sin, be so puffed up as to judge of His divine
claim? How can we set up ourselves to criticise His heavenly
nature, rebelling against God with our unhallowed and blasphemous
disputations? The Lord enunciated the faith of the Gospel in the
simplest words that could be found, and fitted His discourses to our
understanding, so far as the weakness of our nature allowed Him,
without saying anything unworthy of the majesty of His own
nature. The signification of His opening words cannot, I think,
be doubted, Now is the Son of Man glorified; that is, all the
glory which He obtains is not for the Word but for His flesh: not
for the birth of His Godhead, but for the dispensation of His manhood
born into the world. What then, may I ask, is the meaning of what
follows, And God is glorified in Him? I hear that God is
glorified in Him; but what that can be according to your
interpretation, heretic, I do not know. God is glorified in Him,
in the Son of Man, that is: tell me, then, is the Son of Man the
same as the Son of God? And since the Son of Man is not one and
the Son of God another, but He Who is Son of God is Himself also Son of
Man, Who, pray, is the God Who is glorified in this Son of Man, Who is
also Son of God?

41. So God is glorified in the Son of Man,
Who is also Son of God. Let us see, then, what is this third
clause which is added, If God is glorified in Him, God hath also
glorified Him in Himself. What, pray, is this secret
mystery? God, in the glorified Son of Man, glorifies a glorified
God in Himself! The glory of God is in the Son of Man, and the
glory of God is in the glory of the Son 169of Man. God glorifies in Himself, but man
is not glorified through himself. Again the God Who is glorified
in the man, though He receives the glory, yet is Himself none other
than God. But since in the glorifying of the Son of Man, the God,
Who glorifies, glorifies God in Himself, I recognise that the glory of
Christ’s nature is taken into the glory of that nature which
glorifies His nature. God does not glorify Himself; but He
glorifies in Himself God glorified in man. And this
“glorifies in Himself,” though it is not a glorifying of
Himself, yet means that He took the nature, which He glorified, into
the glory of His own nature since the God, Who glorifies the God
glorified in man, glorifies Him in Himself, He proves that the God Whom
He glorifies is in Himself, for He glorifies Him in Himself.
Come, heretic, whoever you be, produce the inextricable objections of
your tortuous doctrine; though they bind themselves in their own
tangles, yet, marshal them as you will, we shall not be in danger of
sticking in their snares. The Son of Man is glorified; God is
glorified in Him; God glorifies in Himself Him, Who is glorified in the
man. It is not the same that the Son of Man is glorified, as that
God is glorified in the Son of Man, or that God glorifies in Himself
Him, Who is glorified in the man. Express in the terms of your
unholy belief, what you mean by God being glorified in the Son of
Man. It must certainly be either Christ Who is glorified in the
flesh, or the Father Who is glorified in Christ. If it is Christ,
Christ is manifestly God, Who is glorified in the flesh. If it is
the Father, we are face to face with the mystery of the unity, since
the Father is glorified in the Son. Thus, if you allow it to be
Christ, despite yourself you confess Him God; if you understand it of
God the Father, you cannot deny the nature of God the Father in
Christ. Let this be enough concerning the glorified Son of Man
and God glorified in Him. But when we consider that God glorifies
in Himself God, Who is glorified in the Son of Man, by what loophole,
pray, can your profane doctrine escape from the confession that Christ
is very God according to the verity of His nature? God glorifies
in Himself Christ, Who was born a man; is Christ then outside Him, when
He glorifies Him in Himself? He restores to Christ in Himself the
glory which He had with Himself, and now that the servant’s form,
which He assumed, is in turn assumed into the form of God, God Who is
glorified in man is glorified in Himself; He was in God’s self
before the dispensation, by which He emptied Himself, and now He is
united with God’s self, both in the form of the servant, and in
the nature belonging to His birth. For His birth did not make Him
God of a new and foreign nature, but by generation He was made natural
Son of a natural Father. After His human birth, when He is
glorified in His manhood, He shines again with the glory of His own
nature; the Father glorifies Him in Himself, when He is assumed into
the glory of His Father’s nature, of which He had emptied Himself
in the dispensation.

42. The words of the Apostle’s faith
are a barrier against your reckless and frenzied profanity, which
forbids you to turn the freedom of speculation into licence, and wander
into error. Every tongue, he says, shall confess that Jesus is
Lord in the glory of God the Father10271027Phil. ii. 11. The Greek is εἰς δόξαν
θεοῦ πατρός,
to the glory of God the Father (R.V.): see note on c. 8.. The Father has glorified Him in
Himself, therefore He must be confessed in the glory of the
Father. And if He is to be confessed in the Father’s glory,
and the Father has glorified Him in Himself, is He not plainly all that
His Father is, since the Father has glorified Him in Himself and He is
to be confessed in the Father’s glory? He is now not merely
in the glory of God, but in the glory of God the Father. The
Father glorifies Him, not with a glory from without, but in
Himself. By taking Him back into that glory, which belongs to
Himself, and which He had with Him before, the Father glorifies Him
with Himself and in Himself. Therefore this confession is
inseparable from Christ even in the humiliation of His manhood, as He
says, And this is eternal life, that they should know Thee, the only
true God, Him, Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ10281028 St. John xvii. 3.; for firstly there is no life eternal in
the confession of God the Father without Jesus Christ, and secondly
Christ is glorified in the Father. Eternal life is precisely
this, to know the only true God and Him, Whom He sent, even Jesus
Christ; deny that Christ is true God, if you can have life by believing
in God without Him. As for the truth that God the Father is the
only true God; let this be untrue of the God Christ, unless
Christ’s glory is wholly in the only true God the Father.
For if the Father glorifies Him in Himself, and the Father is the only
true God, Christ is not outside the only true God, since the Father,
Who is the only true God, glorifies in Himself Christ, Who is raised
into the glory of God. And in that He is glorified by the only
true God in Himself, He is not estranged from the only
170true God, for He is glorified by
the true God in Himself, the only God.

43. But perhaps the godless unbeliever meets
the pious believer with the assertion that we cannot understand of the
true God a confession of powerlessness, such as, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen
the Father doing10291029 St. John v. 19.. If the
twofold anger10301030Ib.
18. The Jews sought the
more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also
called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. of the Jews had not
demanded a twofold answer, it would indeed have been a confession of
weakness, that the Son could do nothing of Himself, except what He had
seen the Father doing. But Christ was answering in the same
sentence the double charge of the Jews, who accused Him of violating
the Sabbath, and of making Himself equal with God by calling God His
Father. Do you think, then, that by fixing attention upon the
form of His reply you can withdraw it for the substance? We have
already treated of this passage in another book10311031 Book vii. 15 ff.;
yet as the exposition of the faith gains rather than loses by
repetition, let us ponder once more on the words, since the occasion
demands it of us.

44. Hear how the necessity for the reply
arose:—And for this cause did the Jews persecute Jesus, and
sought to kill Him, because He did these things on the
Sabbath10321032 St. John v. 16.. Their
anger was so kindled against Him, that they desired to kill Him,
because He did His works on the Sabbath. But let us see also what
the Lord answered, My Father worketh even until now, and I
work10331033Ib.
17.. Tell us,
heretic, what is that work of the Father; since through the Son, and in
the Son, are all things, visible and invisible? You, who are wise
beyond the Gospels, have doubtless obtained from some other secret
source of learning the knowledge of the Father’s work, to reveal
Him to us. But the Father works in the Son, as the Son Himself
says, The words that I say unto you, I speak not from Myself, but
the Father who abideth in Me, He doeth His works10341034Ib. xiv.
10.. Do you grasp the meaning of the
words, My Father worketh even until now? He speaks that we
may recognise in Him the power of the Father’s nature employing
the nature, which has that power, to work on the Sabbath. The
Father works in Him while He works; without doubt, then, He works along
with the working of the Father, and therefore He says, My Father
worketh even until now, that this present work of His words and
actions may be regarded as the working of the Father’s nature in
Himself. This worketh even until now identifies the time
with the moment of speaking, and therefore we must regard Him as
referring to that very work of the Father’s which He was then
doing, for it implies the working of the Father at the very time of His
words. And lest the Faith, being restricted to a knowledge of the
Father only, should fail of the hope of eternal life, He adds at once,
And I work; that is, what the Father worketh even until now, the
Son also worketh. Thus He expounds the whole of the faith; for
the work which is now, belongs to the present time; and if the Father
works, and the Son works, no union exists between them, which merges
them into a single Person10351035 That both Father and
Son work implies that They are two distinct Persons and forbids us to
suppose a union of Father and Son, which merges them into one
Person.. But the
wrath of the bystanders is now redoubled. Hear what follows,
For this cause, therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill Him,
because He not only broke the Sabbath, but because He called God His
own Father, making Himself equal with God10361036 St. John v. 18.. Allow me here to repeat that, by
the judgment of the Evangelist and by common consent of mankind, the
Son is in equality with the Father’s nature; and that equality
cannot exist except by identity of nature. The begotten cannot
derive what it is save from its source and the thing generated cannot
be foreign to that which generates it, since from that alone has it
come to be what it is. Let us see, then, what the Lord replied to
this double outburst of wrath, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the
Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father
doing: for what things soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth
in like manner10371037Ib.
19..

45. Unless we regard these words as an
integral part of His statement, we do them violence by forcing upon
them an arbitrary and unbelieving interpretation. But if His
answer refers to the grounds of their anger, our faith expresses
rightly what He meant to teach, and the perversity of the ungodly is
left without support for its profane delusion. Let us see then
whether this reply is suitable to an accusation of working on the
Sabbath. The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath
seen the Father doing. He has said just above, My Father
worketh even until now, and I work. If by virtue of the
authority of the Father’s nature within Him, all that He works,
He works with the Father in Him, and the Father works even until now on
the Sabbath, then the Son, Who pleads the authority of the
Father’s working, is acquitted of blame.
171For the words, can do
nothing, refer not to strength but to authority; He can do nothing
of Himself, except what He has seen. Now, to have seen does not
confer the power to do, and therefore He is not weak, if He can do
nothing without having seen, but His authority is shewn to depend on
seeing. Again the words, unless He hath seen, signify the
consciousness derived from seeing, as when He says to the Apostles,
Behold I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields,
that they are white already unto harvest10381038 St. John iv. 35.. With the consciousness that the
Father’s nature is abiding in Him, and working in Him when He
works, to forestall the idea that the Lord of the Sabbath has violated
the Sabbath, He pronounces that, The Son can do nothing of Himself,
but what He hath seen the Father doing. And thus He
demonstrates that His every action springs from His consciousness of
the nature working within Him; when He works on the Sabbath, the Father
worketh even until now on the Sabbath. In what follows, however,
He refers to the second cause of their indignation, For what things
soever He doeth, the Son doeth in like manner. Is it false
that, what things soever the Father doeth, the Son doeth in like
manner? Does the Son of God admit a distinction between the
Father’s power and working and His own? Does He shrink from
claiming the equality of homage befitting an equal in power and
nature? If He does, disdain His weakness, and degrade Him from
equality of nature with the Father. But He Himself says only a
little later, That all may honour the Son, even as they honour the
Father, He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which
sent Him10391039Ib. cf.
23.. Discover,
if you can, the inferiority, when Both are equal in honour; make out
the weakness, when Both work with the same power.

46. Why do you misrepresent the occasion of
the reply in order to detract from His divinity? To the working
on the Sabbath He answers that He can do nothing of Himself, but what
He hath seen the Father doing: to demonstrate His equality, He
professes to do what things soever the Father doeth. Enforce your
charge of weakness, by His answer concerning the Sabbath, if you can
disprove that what things soever the Father doeth, the Son doeth in
like manner. But if what things soever includes all things
without exception; in what is He found weak, when there is nothing that
the Father doeth, which He cannot also do? Where is His claim to
equality refuted by any episode of weakness, when one and the same
honour is demanded for Him and for the Father? If Both have the
same power in operation, and both claim the same reverence in worship,
I cannot understand what dishonour of inferiority can exist, since
Father and Son possess the same power of operation, and equality of
honour.

47. Although we have treated this passage as
the facts themselves explain it, yet to prove that the Lord’s
words, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the
Father doing, so far from supporting this unholy degradation of His
nature, testify to His conscious possession of the nature of the
Father, by Whose authority He worked on the Sabbath, let us shew them
that we can produce another saying of the Lord, which bears upon the
question, I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father taught Me, I
speak these things. And He that sent Me is with Me: He hath
not left Me alone, for I do always the things that are pleasing to
Him10401040 St. John viii. 28, 29.. Do you feel
what is implied in the words, The Son can do nothing, but what He
hath seen the Father doing? Or what a mystery is contained in
the saying, I can do nothing of myself, and He hath not left me
alone, for I do always the things that are pleasing to Him?
He does nothing of Himself, because the Father abides in Him; can you
reconcile with this the fact that the Father does not leave Him,
because He does the things which are pleasing to Him? Your
interpretation, heretic, sets up a contradiction between these two
statements, that He does nothing of Himself, unless taught of the
Father abiding in Him, and that the Father abides in Him, because He
does always the things which are pleasing to Him. For if the
Father’s abiding in Him means that He does nothing of Himself,
how could He have deserved that the Father should abide in Him, by
doing always the things which are pleasing to the Father. It is
no merit, not to do of oneself what one does. Conversely, how are
the Son’s deeds pleasing to the Father, if the Father Himself,
abiding in the Son, be their Author? Impiety, thou art in a sore
strait; the well-armed piety of the faith hath hemmed thee in.
The Son is either an Agent, or He is not. If He is not an Agent,
how does He please by his acts? If He is an Agent, in what sense
are deeds, done not of Himself, His own? On the one hand,
He must have done the things which are pleasing; on the other, it is no
merit to have done, yet not of oneself, what one does.

48. But, my opponent, the unity of Their nature is
such, that the several action of 172Each implies the conjoint action of Both,
and Their joint activity a several activity of Each. Conceive the
Son acting, and the Father acting through Him. He acts not of
Himself, for we have to explain how the Father abides in Him. He
acts in His own Person, for in accordance with His birth as the Son, He
does Himself what is pleasing. His acting not of Himself
would prove Him weak, were it not the case that He so acts that what He
does is pleasing to the Father. But He would not be in the unity
of the divine nature, if the deeds which He does, and wherein He
pleases, were not His own, and He were merely prompted to action by the
Father abiding in Him. The Father then in abiding in Him, teaches
Him, and the Son in acting, acts not of Himself; while, on the other
hand, the Son, though not acting of Himself, acts Himself, for what He
does is pleasing. Thus is the unity of Their nature retained in
Their action, for the One, though He acts Himself, does not act of
Himself, while the Other, Who has abstained from action, is yet
active.

49. Connect with this that saying, which you
lay hold of to support the imputation of infirmity, All that the
Father giveth Me shall come unto Me, and him that cometh to Me I will
in no wise cast out; for I am come down from heaven not to do Mine own
will, but the will of the Father that sent Me10411041 St. John vi. 37, 38.. But, perhaps you say, the Son has no
freedom of will: the weakness of His nature subjects Him to
necessity, and He is denied free-will, and subjected to necessity that
He may not reject those who are given to Him and come from the
Father. Nor was the Lord content to demonstrate the mystery of
the Unity by His action in not rejecting those who are given to Him,
nor seeking to do His own will instead of the will of him that sent
Him, but when the Jews, after the repetition of the words, Him that
sent Me, began to murmur, He confirms our interpretation by saying,
Every one who heareth from the Father and learneth, cometh unto
Me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He which is from
God, He hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he
that believeth in Me hath eternal life10421042Ib.
45–47.. Now, tell me first, where has the
Father been heard, and where has He taught His hearers? No one
hath seen the Father, save Him Who is from God: has any one ever
heard Him Whom no one has ever seen? He that has heard from the
Father, comes to the Son: and he that has heard the teaching of
the Son, has heard the teaching of the Father’s nature, for its
properties are revealed in the Son. When, therefore, we hear the
Son teaching, we must understand that we are hearing the teaching of
the Father. No one hath seen the Father, yet he who comes to the
Son, hears and learns from the Father to come: it is manifest,
therefore, that the Father teaches through the words of the Son, and,
though seen of none, speaks to us in the manifestation of the Son,
because the Son, by virtue of His perfect birth, possesses all the
properties of His Father’s nature. The Only-begotten God
desiring, therefore, to testify of the Father’s authority, yet
inculcating His own unity with the Father’s nature, does not cast
out those who are given to Him of the Father, or work His own will
instead of the will of Him that sent Him: not that He does not
will what He does, or is not Himself heard when He teaches; but in
order that He may reveal Him Who sent Him, and Himself the Sent, under
the aspect of one indistinguishable nature, He shews all that He wills,
and says, and does, to be the will and works of the Father.

50. But He proves abundantly that His will
is free by the words, As the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth
them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom He will10431043 St. John v. 21.. When the equality of Father and Son
in power and honour is indicated, then the freedom of the Son’s
will is made manifest: when Their unity is demonstrated, His
conformity to the Father’s will is signified, for what the Father
wills, the Son does. But to do is something more than to obey a
will: the latter would imply external necessity, while to do
another’s will requires unity with him, being an act of
volition. In doing the will of the Father the Son teaches that
through the identity of Their nature His will is the same in nature
with the Father’s, since all that He does is the Father’s
will. The Son plainly wills all that the Father wills, for wills
of the same nature cannot dissent from one another. It is the
will of the Father which is revealed in the words, For this is the
will of My Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son and believeth
in Him, should have eternal life, and that I should raise Him up at the
last day10441044Ib. vi.
40.. Hear now,
whether the will of the Son is discordant with the Father’s, when
He says, Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I
am they also may be with Me10451045Ib.
xvii. 24.. Here is
no doubt that the Son wills: for while the Father wills that
those who believe in the Son should have eternal life, the Son wills
that the believer should be 173where He is. For is it not eternal
life to dwell together with Christ? And does He not grant to the
believer in Him all perfection of blessing when He says, No one hath
known the Son save the Father, neither hath any known the Father save
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal
Him10461046 St. Matt. xi. 27.? Has He not
freedom of will, when He wills to impart to us the knowledge of the
Father’s mystery? Is not His will so free that He can
bestow on whom He will the knowledge of Himself and His Father?
Thus Father and Son are manifestly joint Possessors of a nature common
to Both through birth and common through unity: for the Son is
free of will, but what He does willingly is an act of the
Father’s will.

51. He who has not grasped the manifest
truths of the faith, obviously cannot have an understanding of its
mysteries; because he has not the doctrine of the Gospel he is an alien
to the hope of the Gospel. We must confess the Father to be in
the Son and the Son in the Father, by unity of nature, by might of
power, as equal in honour as Begetter and Begotten. But, perhaps
you say, the witness of our Lord Himself is contrary to this
declaration, for He says, The Father is greater than I10471047 St. John xiv. 28.. Is this, heretic, the weapon of
your profanity? Are these the arms of your frenzy? Has it
escaped you, that the Church does not admit two Unbegotten, or confess
two Fathers? Have you forgotten the Incarnation of the Mediator,
with the birth, the cradle, the childhood, the passion, the cross and
the death belonging to it? When you were born again, did you not
confess the Son of God, born of Mary? If the Son of God, of Whom
these things are true, says, The Father is greater than I, can
you be ignorant that the Incarnation for your salvation was an emptying
of the form of God, and that the Father, unaffected by this assumption
of human conditions, abode in the blessed eternity of His own incorrupt
nature without taking our flesh? We confess that the
Only-begotten God, while He abode in the form of God, abode in the
nature of God, but we do not at once reabsorb into the substance of the
divine unity His unity bearing the form of a servant. Nor do we
teach that the Father is in the Son, as if He entered into Him bodily;
but that the nature which was begotten by the Father of the same kind
as His own, possessed by nature the nature which begot it10481048 The unity of the
Father and the Son does not mean that the Son’s body was derived
from the Father, as in human conception the father is in the son; but
the Son Who derived His incorporeal nature from the Father at the
generation, afterwards assumed a human body for the Incarnation.
Thus Hilary clears himself of any Patripassian or Marcellian
construction which might be put on his words.: and that this nature, abiding in
the form of the nature which begot it, took the form of human nature
and weakness. Christ possessed all that was proper to His
nature: but the form of God had departed from Him, for by
emptying Himself of it, He had taken the form of a servant. The
divine nature had not ceased to be, but still abiding in Him, it had
taken upon itself the humility of earthly birth, and was exercising its
proper power in the fashion of the humility it assumed. So God,
born of God, being found as man in the form of a servant, but acting as
God in His miracles, was at once God as His deeds proved, and yet man,
for He was found in the fashion of man.

52. Therefore, in the discourse we have
expounded above, He had borne witness to the unity of His nature with
the Father’s: He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father
also10491049 St. John xiv. 9.: The
Father is in Me, and I in the Father10501050Ib. x. 38: cf. xiv. 10, 11. These two passages perfectly
agree, since Both Persons are of equal nature; to behold the Son is the
same as to behold the Father; that the One abides in the One shows that
They are inseparable. And, lest they should misunderstand Him, as
though when they beheld His body, they beheld the Father in Him, He had
added, Believe Me, that I am in the Father and the Father in
Me: or else believe Me for the very works’
sake10511051Ib. xiv.
11.. His power
belonged to His nature, and His working was the exercise of that power;
in the exercise of that power, then, they might recognise in Him the
unity with the Father’s nature. In proportion as any one
recognised Him to be God in the power of His nature, he would come to
know God the Father, present in that mighty nature. The Son, Who
is equal with the Father, shewed by His works that the Father could be
seen in Him: in order that we, perceiving in the Son a nature
like the Father’s in its power, might know that in Father and Son
there is no distinction of nature.

53. So the Only-begotten God, just before He
finished His work in the flesh, and completed the mystery of taking the
servant’s form, in order to establish our faith, thus speaks,
Ye heard how I said unto you, I go away, and I came unto you.
If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go unto the Father; for the
Father is greater than I10521052Ib.
28.. He has
already, in an earlier part of this very discourse unfolded in all its
aspects the teaching of His divine nature: can we, then, on the
strength 174of this
confession deprive the Son of that equality, which His true birth has
perfected in Him? Or is it an indignity to the Only-begotten God,
that the Unbegotten God is His Father, seeing that His Only-begotten
birth from the Unbegotten gives Him the Only-begotten nature? He
is not the source of His own being, nor did He, being Himself
non-existent, bring to pass His own birth out of nothing; but, existing
as a living nature and from a living nature, He possesses the power of
that nature, and declares the authority of that nature, by bearing
witness to His honour, and in His honour to the grace belonging to the
birth He received. He pays to the Father the tribute of obedience
to the will of Him Who sent Him, but the obedience of humility does not
dissolve the unity of His nature: He becomes obedient unto death,
but, after death, He is above every name10531053Phil. ii. 8, 9..

54. But if His equality is doubted because
the Name is given Him after He put off the form of God, we dishonour
Him by ignoring the mystery of the humility which He assumed. The
birth of His humanity brought to Him a new nature, and His form was
changed in His humility, by the assumption of a servant’s form,
but now the giving of the Name restores to Him equality of form.
Ask yourself what it is, which is given. If the gift be something
pertaining to God, the grant to the receiving nature does not impair
the divinity of the giving nature. Again, the words, And gave
Him the Name, involve a mystery in the giving, but the giving of
the Name does not make it another name. To Jesus is given, that
to Him, Every knee shall bow of things in heaven, and things on
earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
is Lord in the glory of God the Father10541054Ib.
10, 11.. The honour is given Him that He
should be confessed in the glory of God the Father. Do you hear
Him say, The Father is greater than I? Know Him also, of
Whom it is said in reward of His obedience, And gave unto Him the
Name which is above every name10551055Ib.
9.; hear Him Who
said, I and the Father are one; He that hath seen Me, hath seen the
Father also; I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.
Consider the honour of the confession which is granted Him, that Jesus
is Lord in the glory of God the Father. When, then, is the Father
greater than the Son? Surely, when He gives Him the Name above
every name. And on the other hand, when is it that the Son and
the Father are one? Surely, when every tongue confesses that
Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father. If, then, the
Father is greater through His authority to give, is the Son less
through the confession of receiving? The Giver is greater:
but the Receiver is not less, for to Him it is given to be one with the
Giver. If it is not given to Jesus to be confessed in the glory
of God the Father, He is less than the Father. But if it is given
Him to be in that glory, in which the Father is, we see in the
prerogative of giving, that the Giver is greater, and in the confession
of the gift, that the Two are One. The Father is, therefore,
greater than the Son: for manifestly He is greater, Who makes
another to be all that He Himself is, Who imparts to the Son by the
mystery of the birth the image of His own unbegotten nature, Who begets
Him from Himself into His own form, and restores Him again from the
form of a servant to the form of God, Whose work it is that Christ,
born God according to the Spirit in the glory of the Father, but now
Jesus Christ dead in the flesh, should be once more God in the glory of
the Father. When, therefore, Christ says that He is going to the
Father, He reveals the reason why they should rejoice if they loved
Him, because the Father is greater than He.

55. After the explanation that love is the
source of this joy, because love rejoices that Jesus is to be confessed
in the glory of God the Father, He next expresses His claim to receive
back that glory, in the words, For the prince of this world cometh,
and he hath nothing in Me10561056 St. John xiv. 30.. The prince
of this world hath nothing in Him: for being found in fashion as
a man, He dwelt in the likeness of the flesh of sin, yet apart from the
sin of the flesh, and in the flesh condemned sin by sin10571057Rom. viii. 3. Here Hilary’s de
pecccato peccatum…condemnans must mean ‘by means of
sin.’ In Latin of this date de is often
instrumental.. Then, giving obedience to the
Father’s command as His only motive, He adds, But that the
world may know that I love the Father, even as the Father gave Me
commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go hence10581058 St. John xiv. 31. The words ‘but that the
world…even so I do,’ are generally connected with the
previous sentence, and the last sentence, ‘arise, let us go
hence,’ is regarded as the breaking off of the discourse.
But the words, ‘But that the world,’ &c., do not stand
in very clear connection with the previous sentence, and the view here
suggested has much to be said for it.. In His zeal to do the
Father’s commandment, He rises and hastens to complete the
mystery of His bodily passion. But the next moment He unfolds the
mystery of His assumption of flesh. Through this assumption we
are in Him, as the branches in the vinestock10591059 St. John xv. 1, 2.;
and unless He had become the 175Vine, we could have borne no good
fruit. He exhorts us to abide in Himself, through faith in His
assumed body, that, since the Word has been made flesh, we may be in
the nature of His flesh, as the branches are in the Vine. He
separates the form of the Father’s majesty from the humiliation
of the assumed flesh by calling Himself the Vine, the source of unity
for all the branches, and the Father the careful Husbandman, Who prunes
away its useless and barren branches to be burnt in the fire. In
the words, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also, and
The words that I say unto you, I speak not of Myself, but the Father
abiding in Me, He doeth His works, and Believe Me, that I am in
the Father, and the Father in Me, He reveals the truth of His birth
and the mystery of His Incarnation. He then continues the thread
of His discourse, until He comes to the saying, The Father is
greater than I; and after this, to complete the meaning of these
words, He hastens to add the illustration of the husbandman, the vine,
and the branches, which directs our notice to His submission to bodily
humiliation. He says that, because the Father is greater than
Himself, He is going to the Father, and that love should rejoice, that
He is going to the Father, that is, to receive back His glory from the
Father: with Him, and in Him, to be glorified not with a
brand-new honour, but with the old, not with some strange honour but
with that which He had with Him before. If then Christ shall not
enter into Him with glory, to abide in the glory of God, you may
disparage His nature: but if the glory which He receives is the
proof of His Godhead, recognise that it as Giver of this proof that the
Father is the greater.

56. Why do you distort the Incarnation into a
blasphemy? Why pervert the mystery of salvation into a weapon of
destruction? The Father, Who glorifies the Son, is greater:
The Son, Who is glorified in the Father, is not less. How can He
be less, when He is in the glory of God the Father? And how can
the Father not be greater? The Father therefore is greater,
because He is Father: but the Son, because He is Son, is not
less. By the birth of the Son the Father is constituted
greater: the nature that is His by birth, does not suffer the Son
to be less. The Father is greater, for the Son prays Him to
render glory to manhood He has assumed. The Son is not less, for
He receives back His glory with the Father. Thus are consummated
at once the mystery of the Birth, and the dispensation of the
Incarnation. The Father, as Father, and as glorifying Him Who now
is Son of Man, is greater: Father and Son are one, in that the
Son, born of the Father, after assuming an earthly body is taken back
to the glory of the Father.

57. The birth, therefore, does not constitute His
nature inferior, for He is in the form of God, as being born of
God. And though by their very signification,
‘Unbegotten’ and ‘Begotten’ seem to be opposed,
yet the Begotten cannot be excluded from the nature of the Unbegotten,
for there is none other from whom He could derive His substance.
He does not indeed share in the supreme majesty of being
unbegotten: but He has received from the Unbegotten God the
nature of divinity. Thus faith confesses the eternity of the
Only-begotten God, though it can give no meaning to begetting or
beginning in His case. His nature forbids us to say that He ever
began to be, for His birth lies beyond the beginnings of time.
But while we confess Him existent before all ages, we do not hesitate
to pronounce Him born in timeless eternity, for we believe His birth,
though we know it never had a beginning.

58. Seeking to disparage His nature, the
heretics lay hold of such sayings as, The Father is greater than
I, or, But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the
angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only10601060 St. Matt. xxiv. 36; St. Mark xiii. 32.. It is turned to a reproach against the
Only-begotten God that He did not know the day and the hour:
that, though God, born of God, He is not in the perfection of divine
nature, since He is subjected to the limitation of ignorance; that is,
an external force stronger than Himself, triumphing, as it were, over
His weakness, makes Him captive to this infirmity. And, indeed,
it is with an apparent right to claim that this confession is
inevitable, that the heretics, in their frenzy, would drive us to such
a blasphemous interpretation. The words are those of the Lord
Himself, and what, it may be asked, could be more unholy than to
corrupt His express assertion by our attempt to explain it
away.

59. But, before we investigate the meaning and
occasion of these words, let us first appeal to the judgment of common
sense. Is it credible, that He, Who stands to all things as the
Author of their present and future, should not know all things?
If all things are through and in Christ, and in such a way through
Christ that they are also in Him, must not that, which is both in Him
and through Him, be also in His knowledge, when that knowledge, by
virtue of a nature which cannot be 176nescient, habitually apprehends what is
neither in, nor through Him10611061 Christ was conscious,
e.g., of the sinfulness of man.? But that
which derives from Him alone its origin, and has in Him alone the
efficient cause of its present state and future development, can that
be beyond the ken of His nature, through which is effected, and in
which is contained, all that it is and shall be? Jesus Christ
knows the thoughts of the mind, as it is now, stirred by present
motives, and as it will be to-morrow, aroused by the impulse of future
desires. Hear the witness of the Evangelist, For Jesus knew
from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that
should betray Him10621062 St. John vi. 64.. By its
virtue His nature could perceive the unborn future, and foresee the
awakening of passions yet dormant in the mind: do you believe
that it did not know what is through itself, and within itself?
He is Lord of all that belongs to others, is He not Lord of His
own? Remember what is written of Him, All things have been
created through Him, and in Him: and He is before all
things10631063Col. i. 16.: or again,
For it was the good pleasure of the Father, that in Him should all
the fulness dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things unto
Himself10641064Ib.
19., all fulness is in
Him, all things were made through Him, and are reconciled in Him, and
for that day of reconciliation we wait expectant; did He not, then,
know it, when its time was in His hands, and fixed by His mystery, for
it is the day of His coming, of which the Apostle wrote, When
Christ, Who is your life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with
Him be manifested in glory10651065Ib. iii.
4.. No one is
ignorant of that which is through himself and within himself:
shall Christ come, and does He not know the day of His coming? It
is His day, for the same Apostle says, The day of the Lord shall
come as a thief in the night106610661 Thess. v. 2.: can we
believe, then, that He did not know it? Human natures, so far as
in them lies, foresee what they determine to do: knowledge of the
end desired accompanies the desire to act: does not He Who is
born God, know what is in, and through, Himself? The times are
through Him, the day is in His hand, for the future is constituted
through Him, and the Dispensation of His coming is in His power:
is His understanding so dull, that the sense of His torpid nature does
not tell Him what He has Himself determined? Is He like the brute
and the beast, which, animated by no reason or foresight, not even
conscious of acting but driven to and fro by the impulse of irrational
desire, proceed to their end with fortuitous and uncertain
course?

60. But, again, how can we believe that the Lord
of glory, because He was able not to know the day of His own coming,
was of a discordant and imperfect nature, subject to the necessity of
coming, but ignorant of the day of His coming? This would make
God weaker than the power of ignorance, which took from Him the
prerogative of knowledge. Then, too, how we redouble occasions of
blasphemy, if we impute not only infirmity to Christ, but also defect
to God the Father, saying that He defrauded of foreknowledge of this
day the Only-begotten God, the Son of His love, and in malice denied
Him certainty concerning the future consummation: suffered Him to
know the day and hour of His passion, but withheld from Him the day of
His power, and the hour of His glory among His Saints: took from
Him the knowledge of His blessedness, while He granted Him prescience
of His death? The trembling conscience of man dare not presume to
think thus of God, or ascribe to Him such taint of human fickleness,
that the Father should deny anything to the Son, or the Son, Who was
born as God, should possess an imperfect knowledge.

61. But God can never be anything but love, or
anything but the Father: and He, Who loves, does not envy; He Who
is Father, is wholly and entirely Father. This name admits of no
compromise: no one can be partly father, and partly not. A
father is father in respect of his whole personality; all that he is is
present in the child, for paternity by piecemeal is impossible:
not that paternity extends to self-generation, but that a father is
altogether father in all his qualities, to the offsprings born of
him. According to the constitution of human bodies, which are
made of dissimilar elements, and composed of various parts, the father
must be father of the whole, since a perfect birth hands on to the
child all the different elements and parts, which are in the
father. The father is, therefore, father of all that is his; the
birth proceeds from the whole of himself, and constitutes the whole of
the child. God, however, has no body, but simple essence:
no parts, but an all-embracing whole: nothing quickened, but
everything living. God is therefore all life, and all one, not
compounded of parts, but perfect in His simplicity, and, as the Father,
must be Father to His begotten in all that He Himself is, for the
perfect birth of the Son makes Him perfect Father in all that He
has. So, if He is proper Father to the Son, the Son must possess
all the 177properties of the
Father. Yet how can this be, if the Son has not the quality of
prescience, if there is anything from His Author, which is wanting in
His birth? To say that there is one of God’s properties
which He has not, is almost equivalent to saying that He has none of
them. And what is proper to God, if not the knowledge of the
future, a vision, which embraces the invisible and unborn world, and
has within its scope that which is not yet, but is to be?

62. Moreover Paul, the teacher of the
Gentiles, forestalls the impious falsehood, that the Only-begotten God
was partially nescient. Listen to his words, Being instructed
in love, unto all riches of the fulness of understanding, unto
knowledge of the mystery of God, even Christ, in Whom are all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden10671067Col. ii. 2, 3.. God, even Christ, is the mystery,
and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him.
But a portion is one thing, the whole another: a part is not the
same as all, nor can all be called a part. If the
Son does not know the day, all the treasures of knowledge are not in
Him; but He has all the treasures of knowledge in Him, therefore He is
not ignorant of the day. But we must remember that those
treasures of knowledge were hidden in Him, though not, because
hidden, therefore wanting. As in God, they are in Him: as
in the mystery, they are hidden. But Christ, the mystery of God,
in Whom are all the treasures of knowledge hidden, is not Himself
hidden from our eyes and minds. Since then He is Himself the
mystery, let us see whether He is ignorant when He does not know.
If elsewhere His profession of ignorance does not imply that He does
not know, here also it will be wrong to call Him ignorant, if He does
not know. In Him are hidden all the treasures of knowledge, and
so His ignorance is an economy rather than ignorance. Thus we can
assign a reason for His ignorance, without the assumption that He did
not know.

63. Whenever God says that He does not know,
He professes ignorance indeed, but is not under the defect of
ignorance. It is not because of the infirmity of ignorance that
He does not know, but because it is not yet the time to speak, or the
divine Plan to act. Thus He says to Abraham, The cry of Sodom
and Gomorrah is full, and their sin is very grievous. Therefore I
will go down now, and see if they have done altogether according to the
cry of it: and if not, I will know10681068Gen. xviii. 20, 21.. Here we perceive God not knowing
that which notwithstanding He knows. He knows that their sins are
very grievous, but He comes down again to see whether they have done
altogether, and to know if they have not. We observe, then, that
He is not ignorant, although He does not know, but that, when the time
comes for action, He knows. This knowledge is not, therefore, a
change from ignorance, but the coming of the fulness of time. He
waits still to know, but we cannot suppose that He does not know:
therefore His not knowing what He knows, and His knowing what He does
not know, is nothing else than a divine economy in word and
deed.

64. We cannot, then, doubt that the
knowledge of God depends on the occasion and not on any change on His
part: by the occasion being meant the occasion, not of obtaining
but of declaring knowledge, as we learn from His words to Abraham,
Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him,
for now I know that thou fearest thy God, and hast not withheld thy
beloved son, for My sake10691069Gen. xxii. 12.. God knows
now, but that now I know is a profession of previous
ignorance: yet it is not true, that until now God did not know
the faith of Abraham, for it is written, Abraham believed in God,
and it was counted to him for righteousness10701070Ib. xv.
6.,
and therefore this now I know marks the time when Abraham
received this testimony, not when God began to know. Abraham had
proved, by the sacrifice of his son, the love he bore to God, and God
knew it at the time He spoke: but as we cannot suppose that He
did not know before, we must for this reason suppose that He took
knowledge of it then because He spoke.

By way of example, we have chosen for our consideration
this passage out of many in the Old Testament, which treat of the
knowledge of God, in order to shew that when God does not know, the
cause lies, not in His ignorance, but in the occasion.

65. We find our Lord in the Gospels knowing,
yet not knowing, many things. Thus He does not know the workers
of iniquity, who glory in their mighty works and in His name, for He
says to them, Then will swear, I never knew you; depart from Me, all
ye that work iniquity10711071 St. Matt. vii. 23.. He declares
with an oath even, that He does not know them, but nevertheless He
knows them to be workers of iniquity. He does not know them, not
because He does not know, but because by the iniquity of their deeds
they are unworthy of His knowledge, and He even confirms His denial
with the sanctity of an oath. By the virtue of His nature He
could not be 178ignorant,
by the mystery of His will He refused to know. Again the
Unbegotten God does not know the foolish virgins; He is ignorant of
those who were too careless to have their oil ready, when He entered
the chamber of His glorious coming. They come and implore, and so
far from not knowing them, He cries, Verily, I say unto you, I know
you not10721072 St. Matt. xxv. 12.. Their
coming and their prayer compel Him to recognize them, but His
profession of ignorance refers to His will, not to His nature:
they are unworthy to be known of Him to Whom nothing is unknown.
Hence, in order that we should not impute His ignorance to infirmity,
He says immediately to the Apostles, Watch therefore, for ye know
not the day nor the hour10731073Ib.
xxv. 13.. When He
bids them watch, for they know not the day or the hour, He points out
that He knew not the virgins, because through sleep and neglect they
had no oil, and therefore were unworthy to enter into His
chamber.

66. The Lord Jesus Christ, then, Who
searcheth the heart and the reins10741074Rev. ii. 23.,
has no weakness in His nature, that He should not know, for, as we
perceive, even the fact of His ignorance proceeds from the omniscience
of His nature. Yet if any there be, who impute to Him ignorance,
let them tremble, lest He Who knows their thoughts should say to them,
Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts10751075 St. Matt. ix. 4.? The All-knowing, though not
ignorant of thoughts and deeds, sometimes enquires as if He were, as
for instance when He asks the woman who it was that touched the hem of
His garment, or the Apostles, why they quarrelled among themselves, or
the mourners, where the sepulchre of Lazarus was: but His
ignorance was not ignorance, except in words. It is against
reason that He should know from afar the death and burial of Lazarus,
but not the place of his sepulchre: that He should read the
thoughts of the mind, and not recognise the faith of the woman:
that He should not need to ask concerning anything10761076 St. John xvi.
30. The Greek is ἵνα τίς
σε ἐρωτᾷ, ‘that any
one should ask thee’ (R.V.)., yet be ignorant of the dissension of the
Apostles. But He, Who knows all things, sometimes by a practice
of economy professes ignorance, even though He is not ignorant.
Thus, in the case of Abraham, God concealed His knowledge for a
time: in that of the foolish virgins and the workers of iniquity,
He refused to recognise the unworthy: in the mystery of the Son
of Man, His asking, as if ignorant, expressed His humanity. He
accommodated Himself to the reality of His birth in the flesh in
everything to which the weakness of our nature is subject, not in such
wise that He became weak in His divine nature, but that God, born man,
assumed the weaknesses of humanity, yet without thereby reducing His
unchangeable nature to a weak nature, for the unchangeable nature was
that wherein He mysteriously assumed flesh. He, Who was God is
man, but, being man, has not ceased to remain God. Conducting
Himself then as one born man, and proving Himself such, though
remaining God the Word, He often uses the language of man (though God,
speaking as God, makes frequent use of human terms), and does not know
that which it is not yet time to declare, or which is not deserving of
His recognition.

67. We can now understand why He said that
He knew not the day. If we believe Him to have been really
ignorant, we contradict the Apostle, who says, In Whom are all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden10771077Col. ii. 3.. There is knowledge which is hidden
in Him, and because it has to be hidden, it must sometimes for this
purpose be professed as ignorance, for once declared, it will no longer
be secret. In order, therefore, that the knowledge may remain
hidden, He declares that He does not know. But if He does not
know, in order that the knowledge may remain hidden, this ignorance is
not due to His nature, which is omniscient, for He is ignorant solely
in order that it may be hidden. Nor is it hard to see why the
knowledge of the day is hidden. He exhorts us to watch
continually with unrelaxing faith, and withholds from us the security
of certain knowledge, that our minds may be kept on the stretch by the
uncertainty of suspense, and while they hasten towards and continually
look for the day of His coming, may always watch in hope; and that,
though we know the time must come, its very uncertainty may make us
careful and vigilant. Thus the Lord says, Therefore be ye also
ready, for ye know not what hour the Son of Man shall come10781078 St. Matt. xxiv. 44.; and again, Blessed is that servant
whom His lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing10791079Ib.
46.. The ignorance is, therefore, a
means not to delude, but to encourage in perseverance. It is no
loss to be denied a knowledge which it is an advantage not to have, for
the security of knowledge might breed negligence of the faith, which
now is concealed, while the uncertainty of expectation keeps us
continually prepared, even as the master of the house, with the fear of
loss before his eyes, watches and guards against the dreaded
com179ing of the thief, who
chooses the time of sleep for his work.

68. Manifestly, therefore, the ignorance of God is
not ignorance but a mystery: in the economy of His actions and
words and manifestations, He does not know and at the same time He
knows, or knows and at the same time does not know. But we must
ask, whether it may not be through the Son’s infirmity that He
knows not what the Father knows. He could perhaps read the
thoughts of the human heart, because His stronger nature can unite
itself with a weaker in all its movements, and by the force of its
power, as it were, pass through and through the feeble nature.
But a weaker nature is powerless to penetrate a stronger: light
things may be penetrated by heavy, rare by dense, liquid by solid, but
the heavy are impenetrable to the light, the dense to the rare, and the
solid to the liquid: the strong are not exposed to the weak, but
the weak are penetrated by the strong. Therefore, the heretics
say, the Son knew not the thoughts of the Father, because, being
Himself weak, He could not approach the more powerful and enter into
Him, or pass through Him.

69. Should any one presume, not merely to
speak thus of the Only-begotten God in the rashness of his tongue, but
even to think so in the wickedness of his heart, let him hear what the
Apostle thought of the Holy Ghost, from the words he wrote to the
Corinthians, But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit:
for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God.
For who among men knoweth the things of a man, which are in him, save
the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the things which
are in God, none knoweth, save the Spirit of God108010801 Cor. ii. 10, 11.. But let us cast aside
these empty illustrations of material things, and measure God born of
God, Spirit of Spirit, by His own powers and not by earthly
conditions. Let us measure Him not by our own senses, but by His
divine claims. Let us believe Him Who said, He that hath seen
Me hath seen the Father also10811081 St. John xiv. 9.. Let
us not forget that He said, Believe, if only by My works, that the
Father is in Me, and I in the Father10821082 St. John x.
38; cf. xiv. 11., and again, I and the Father are
one10831083Ib. x.
30.. If the
names which correspond to realities, when intelligibly used, impart to
us any true information, then He Who is seen in Another by the eye of
understanding is not different in nature from that Other; not different
in kind, since He abides in the Father, and the Father in Him; not
separate, since Both are One. Perceive their unity in the
indivisibility of their nature, and apprehend the mystery of that
indivisible nature by regarding the One as the mirror of the
Other. But remember that He is the mirror, not as the image
reflected by the splendour of a nature outside Himself, but as being a
living nature, indistinguishable from the Father’s living nature,
derived wholly from the whole of His Father’s, having the
Father’s in Him because He is the Only begotten, and abiding in
the Father, because He is God.

70. The heretics cannot deny that the Lord
used these words to signify the mystery His birth, but they attempt to
escape from them by referring them to a harmony of will. They
make the unity of God the Father and God the Son not one of divinity,
but merely of will: as if the divine teaching were poor in
expression and the Lord could not have said, I and the Father are
one in will; or as if those words could have the same meaning as
I and the Father are one; or as if He meant, He that hath
seen My will, hath seen the will of My Father also, but, being
unskilled statement, tried to express that idea in the words, He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also: or as if the
divine vocabulary did not contain the terms, The will of My Father
is in Me, and My will is in the Father, but this thought could be
expressed by I in the Father and the Father in Me. All
this is nauseous and irreverent nonsense; common sense condemns the
judgment of such silly fancies, as that the Lord could not say what He
wanted, or did not say what He said. True, we find Him speaking
in parables and allegories, but it is a different thing to strengthen
one’s words with illustrations, or satisfy the dignity of the
subject with the help of suggestive proverbs, or adapt one’s
language to the needs of the moment. But this passage concerning
the unity, of which we are speaking, does not allow us to look for the
meaning outside the plain sound of the words. If Father and Son
are one, in the sense that They are one in will, and if separable
natures cannot be one in will, because their diversity of kind and
nature must draw them into diversities of will and judgment, how can
They be one in will, not being one in knowledge? There can be no
unity of will between ignorance and knowledge. Omniscience and
nescience are opposites, and opposites cannot be of the same
will.

71. But perhaps it may be held to confirm the Son
in His confession of ignorance that He says the Father alone
knows. But unless He had plainly said that the Father alone
knows, it would have been a matter of the greatest danger for our
under180standing, since we might
have thought that He Himself did not know. For, since His
ignorance is due to the economy of hidden knowledge, and not to a
nature capable of ignorance, now that He says the Father alone knows,
we cannot believe that He does not know; for, as we said above,
God’s knowledge is not the discovery of what He did not know, but
its declaration. The fact that the Father alone knows, is no
proof that the Son is ignorant: He says that He does not know,
that others may not know: that the Father alone knows, to shew
that He Himself also knows. If we say that God came to know the
love of Abraham10841084Gen. xxii. 12: see c. 64., when He ceased
to conceal His knowledge, it follows that only because He did not
conceal it from the Son, can the Father be said to know the day, for
God does not learn by sudden perception, but declares His knowledge
with the occasion. If, then, the Son according to the mystery
does not know the day, that He may not reveal it: on the other
hand, only by the fact that He has revealed it can the Father be proved
to know the day.

72. Far be it from us to imagine
vicissitudes of bodily change in the Father and Son, as though the
Father sometimes spoke to the Son, and sometimes was silent. We
remember, indeed, that a voice was sometimes uttered from heaven for
us, that the power of the Father’s words might confirm for us the
mystery of the Son, as the Lord says, This voice hath not come from
Heaven for My sake but for your sakes10851085 St. John xii. 30.. But the divine nature can dispense
with the various combinations necessary for human functions, the motion
of the tongue, the adjustment of the mouth, the forcing of the breath,
and the vibration of the air. God is a simple Being: we
must understand Him by devotion, and confess Him by reverence. He
is to be worshipped, not pursued by our senses, for a conditioned and
weak nature cannot grasp with the guesses of its imagination the
mystery of an infinite and omnipotent nature. In God is no
variability, no parts, as of a composite divinity, that in Him will
should follow inaction, speech silence, or work rest, or that He should
not will, without passing from some other mental state to volition, or
speak, without breaking the silence with His voice, or act, without
going forth to labour. He is not subject to the laws of nature,
for nature has received its law from Him: He never suffers
weakness or change when He acts, for His power is boundless, as the
Lord said, Father, all things are possible unto Thee10861086 St. Mark xiv. 36.. He can do more than human sense
can conceive. The Lord does not deprive even Himself of the
quality of omnipotence, for He says, What things soever the Father
doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner10871087 St. John v. 19.. Nothing is difficult, when there
is no weakness; for only a power which is weak to effect, knows the
need of effort. The cause of difficulty is the weakness of the
motive force; a force of limitless power rises above the conditions of
impotence.

73. We have established this point to
exclude the idea that after silence God spoke to the Son, or after
ignorance the Son began to know. To reach our intelligence terms
must be used applicable to our own nature: thus we do not
understand communication except by word of mouth, or comprehend the
opposite of nescience except as knowledge. Thus the Son does not
know the day for the reason that He does not reveal it: the
Father, He says, alone knows it for the reason that He reveals it to
the Son alone. But, as we have said, Christ is conscious of no
such natural impediments as an ignorance which must be removed before
He can come to know, or a knowledge which is not His before the Father
begins to speak. He declares the unity of His nature, as the
only-begotten, with the Father, by the unmistakable words, All
things whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine10881088Ib. xvi.
15.. There is no mention here of
coming into possession: it is one thing, to be the Possessor of
things external to Him; another, to be self-contained and
self-existent. The former is to possess heaven and earth and the
universe, the latter to be able to describe Himself by His own
properties, which are His, not as something external and subject, but
as something of which He Himself subsists. When He says,
therefore, that all things which the Father has, are His, He alludes to
the divine nature, and not to a joint ownership of gifts
bestowed. For referring to His words that the Holy Spirit should
take of His10891089Ib.
14. “He shall
glorify Me, for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto
you.”, He says, All
things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine, therefore said I, He shall
take of Mine: that is, the Holy Spirit takes of His, but
takes also of the Father’s: and if He receives of the
Father’s, He receives also of His. The Holy Spirit is the
Spirit of God, and does not receive of a creature, but teaches us that
He receives all these gifts, because they are all God’s.
All things that belong to the Father are the Spirit’s; but we
must not think that whatever He received of the Son, He did not receive
of the Father also; for all that the Father hath belongs equally to the
Son.

18174. So
the nature of Christ needed no change, or question, or answer, that it
should advance from ignorance to knowledge, or ask of One Who had
continued in silence, and wait to receive His answer: but,
abiding perfectly in mysterious unity with Him, it received of God its
whole being as it derived from Him its origin. And, further, it
received all that belonged to the whole being of God, namely, His
knowledge and His will. What the Father knows, the Son does not
learn by question and answer; what the Father wills, the Son does not
will by command. Since all that the Father has, is His, it is the
property of His nature to will and know, exactly as the Father wills
and knows. But to prove His birth He often expounds the doctrine
of His Person, as when He says, I came not to do Mine own will, but
the will of Him that sent Me.10901090 St. John vi. 38. Hilary means that by the mention
of two wills, our Lord teaches the personal distinction of the Father
and the Son: cf. cc. 49, 50. He does
the Father’s will, not His own, and by the will of Him that
sent Me, He means His Father. But that He Himself wills the
same, is unmistakeably declared in the words, Father, those whom
Thou hast given Me, I will, that, where I am, they also may be with
Me10911091 St. John xvii. 24.. The Father
wills that we should be with Christ, in Whom, according to the Apostle,
He chose us before the foundation of the world10921092Eph. i. 4.,
and the Son wills the same, namely that we should be with Him.
His will is, therefore, the same in nature as the Father’s will,
though to make plain the fact of the birth it is distinguished from the
Father’s.

75. The Son is ignorant, then, of nothing
which the Father knows, nor does it follow because the Father alone
knows, that the Son does not know. Father and Son abide in unity
of nature, and the ignorance of the Son belongs to the divine Plan of
silence, seeing that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. This the Lord Himself testified, when He answered the
question of the Apostles concerning the times, It is not yours to
know times or moments, which the Father hath set within His own
authority10931093Acts i. 7.. The
knowledge is denied them, and not only that, but the anxiety to learn
is forbidden, because it is not theirs to know these times. Yet
now that He is risen, they ask again, though their question on the
former occasion had been met with the reply, that not even the Son
knew. They cannot possibly have understood literally that the Son
did not know, for they ask Him again as though He did know. They
perceived in the mystery of His ignorance a divine Plan of silence, and
now, after His resurrection, they renew the question, thinking that the
time has come to speak. And the Son no longer denies that He
knows, but tells them that it is not theirs to know, because the Father
has set it within His own authority. If then, the Apostles
attributed it to the divine Plan, and not to weakness, that the Son did
not know the day, shall we say that the Son knew not the day for the
simple reason that He was not God? Remember, God the Father set
the day within His authority, that it might not come to the knowledge
of man, and the Son, when asked before, replied that He did not know,
but now, no longer denying His knowledge, replies that it is theirs not
to know, for the Father has set the times not in His own
knowledge, but in His own authority. The day and
the moment are included in the word ‘times’: can it
be, then, that He, Who was to restore Israel to its kingdom, did not
Himself know the day and the moment of that restoration? He
instructs us to see an evidence of His birth in this exclusive
prerogative of the Father, yet He does not deny that He knows:
and while He proclaims that the possession of this knowledge is
withheld from ourselves, He asserts that it belongs to the mystery of
the Father’s authority.

10941094 This last
paragraph is omitted from many mss., though
contained in several of high authority. It offers a different
explanation from that which Hilary has adopted in the rest of the book
(see especially c. 59), where he maintains that Christ avoided
revealing what He really knew, by saying that He did not know.
The line adopted here is the same as that in the passage found by
Erasmus and inserted by him in Book x. c. 8. This is one of
several interpolations made in later, though still early, times to
correct or supplement Hilary’s teaching; cf. x. 8, with the
note.We must not
therefore think, because He said He did not know the day and the
moment, that the Son did not know. As man He wept, and slept, and
sorrowed, but God is incapable of tears, or fear, or sleep.
According to the weakness of His flesh He shed tears, slept, hungered,
thirsted, was weary, and feared, yet without impairing the reality of
His Only-begotten nature; equally so must we refer to His human nature,
the words that He knew not the day or the hour.

960Subsistentis
Christi = subsistentia distincti Christi (see footnote
in the Benedictine Edition). God the Father dwelt in
Christ. But the Dweller must be personally distinct from Christ,
in Whom He dwelt: and as the only distinction between the Father
and Christ is that of Begetter and Begotten, therefore the words
‘God dwelt in Christ’ prove the generation of
Christ.

972 The three periods
referred to in these three sentences are 1) before the
Incarnation: we can assign only to His Godhead the words Christ
uses in reference to this period, because He was not yet man. 2)
The Incarnation: we must distinguish whether He is speaking of
Himself as man or as God. 3) After the Resurrection, when His
manhood remains, but is perfected in the Godhead.

975Phil. ii. 10, 11. The Greek is εἰς δόξαν,
κ.τ.λ. ‘to the glory of God the
Father’ (R.V.). There is also another reading in
Hilary’s text in this place, ‘in gloriam’ instead of
‘in gloria;’ but the latter is demanded by the
context. See c. 42.

997 St. John v. 44. The usual text of the Greek is
τὴν δόξαν
τὴν παρὰ τοῦ
μόνου θεοῦ,
“the glory that cometh from the only God” (R.V.).

998 At the close of
this chapter, Hilary speaks as if these words were, “if another
shall come in His (i.e. the Father’s) name,” though the
Latin “si alius venerit in nomine suo,” is ambiguous and
the Greek, “ἔαν ἄλλος
ἔλθῃ ἐν τῷ
ὀνόματι τῷ
ἰδί& 251·,” quite excludes this
translation.

1048 The unity of the
Father and the Son does not mean that the Son’s body was derived
from the Father, as in human conception the father is in the son; but
the Son Who derived His incorporeal nature from the Father at the
generation, afterwards assumed a human body for the Incarnation.
Thus Hilary clears himself of any Patripassian or Marcellian
construction which might be put on his words.

1057Rom. viii. 3. Here Hilary’s de
pecccato peccatum…condemnans must mean ‘by means of
sin.’ In Latin of this date de is often
instrumental.

1058 St. John xiv. 31. The words ‘but that the
world…even so I do,’ are generally connected with the
previous sentence, and the last sentence, ‘arise, let us go
hence,’ is regarded as the breaking off of the discourse.
But the words, ‘But that the world,’ &c., do not stand
in very clear connection with the previous sentence, and the view here
suggested has much to be said for it.

1094 This last
paragraph is omitted from many mss., though
contained in several of high authority. It offers a different
explanation from that which Hilary has adopted in the rest of the book
(see especially c. 59), where he maintains that Christ avoided
revealing what He really knew, by saying that He did not know.
The line adopted here is the same as that in the passage found by
Erasmus and inserted by him in Book x. c. 8. This is one of
several interpolations made in later, though still early, times to
correct or supplement Hilary’s teaching; cf. x. 8, with the
note.